


Don't Kill the Messenger

by pingnova



Series: An Atheist's Rosary [1]
Category: Stigmata (1999), Supernatural
Genre: 1990s, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Blood and Gore, Catholicism, Christianity, Cuddling, Dean/Cas Big Bang Challenge, Exorcisms, Hallucinations, Hurt Dean Winchester, John Winchester’s A+ parenting, M/M, Mechanic Dean Winchester, Minor Lisa Braeden/Dean Winchester, Miracles, New York City, Possession, Priest Castiel, Protective Sam, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Stigmata, Vatican, religious homophobia, temporary major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-23 08:09:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 57,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16155044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pingnova/pseuds/pingnova
Summary: Father Castiel Novak investigates miracles for the Vatican. While it’s disheartening when they all end up fakes, he continues his relentless pursuit in the name of faith and science. After a particularly convincing case in Brazil is taken from him, he’s reassigned to a believer in New York City who’s blessed with the wounds of Christ. Except, Dean Winchester turns out to be no believer, and he and Castiel have very different ideas of what constitutes a divine gift.Dean, an uninspired mechanic with a troubled love life, lives on clubs, sex, and alcohol. Life-threatening wounds with no apparent cause throw his dysfunctional life into bloody chaos. What doctors first call a suicide attempt, a priest calls divine favor—favor Dean doesn’t need, never asked for, and could honestly live without.When Dean begins acting strange, attempting to pass on a message neither he nor Castiel can understand, they turn to a friend in the Vatican and uncover a conspiracy to silence ancient texts similar to Dean’s message. Powerful forces in the Vatican will do anything to keep them from coming to light, anything including exile and murder. And because that’s just how his life works, all that falls upon Dean.





	1. Our Father, who art in Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Extremely dubious application of Catholic theology. Supernatural does what it wants with Christian mythology, I’m just a Lutheran myself, and the movie this is based on is pretty much premised on it. Those are my excuses. No one is allowed to tell my Religion professor that I was associated with this.
> 
> Inspired by/based on/AU of the 1999 horror film _Stigmata_. No need to know anything about the film to enjoy this. Title from Night Riots' _[Don’t Kill the Messenger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjoyHzN6OzI)_. Good song, also apt for this fic.
> 
> This is my first DCBB and the longest thing I've ever written so cheers, I hope this crazy bastard lives up to everything.
> 
>  **Additional warnings** : Wrist trauma, some of it self-inflicted. Talk about suicide but no attempted or successful suicide.
> 
> Thanks to plaid-and-devils-traps for the beta and sketchydean for the wonderful, wonderful art!

“ _By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go…_ ” Song of Songs 3:1-4, KJV

 

* * *

 

Fingers of sunlight painted the city in tender shades of dusk. Tidy brick homes knitted to their neighbors sprawled across dusty hills laden with green palms, corralling a herd of colorful canopies into an open-air market. Time was still. The bustling energy of the people was absent. Gone was the vitality of a dense city. Only echoes of life remained—crowds of footprints in the dust down the aisles, half-opened boxes of merchandise stacked behind tables. A lone bird trilled in the air.

Like the star of the show, an ornate white building rose out of the brick and dust. It was the cornerstone of their lives, where their deepest regrets and loudest prayers were born into reality. The church.

People packed the pews and spilled out into the courtyard. It wasn’t Sunday.

Father Paulo Alamedia was at the altar, lain in a neat wooden box with his hands clasped around the simple black rosary he died with. White flowers framed his aged face. A marble statue of the Virgin Mary watched nearby, arms spread as if welcoming the Father home. Her eyes empty and unseeing, smile hard.

The despair tasted hot and heavy, like lead. The man who baptized them, healed their spirits, and soothed the dying was gone. Faces were lowered in mourning. Families clung to each other for comfort.

Gentle dripping brought all eyes to the altar. Someone gasped, a high, fluttery sound of fear and wonder. The sound rippled through the crowd, multiplied by a chorus of voices expressing their shock and curiosity. 

“ _Mamãe, que é isso? Que? Que?_ ” insisted a small voice under the din.

“ _Deus_ ,” whispered his mother, quiet in her awe. “ _Deus. Deus_.”

It was impossible. Mary cried above Father Alamedia. The tears pearled at the corners of her stone eyes and rolled down her face in thick red streams of divine grief.

She wept blood.

It was a miracle.

 

* * *

 

_God_ , she said. _God_. 

God was with them.

 

* * *

 

First it was a distant hiss. Then the pitter-patter of raindrops against his open windowpane. Traffic on the street below grew steadily in volume. The sky was pink with the approaching dawn. The sweet mineral scent of damp urban architecture reminded Dean that New York didn’t care if he still wanted to sleep.

As the brief shower petered off, he pulled a pillow over his head to block out the traffic and drifted again. 

He realized the bedside phone was demanding attention on the third ring. Dean buried his face further into the pillow and groaned. He knew who was on the other end and didn’t feel like facing that right now. Sleep sounded much better.

On the seventh ring he untangled his hand from the blankets and fumbled with the handset without opening his eyes.

“What?” he grunted, only giving it half of his attention. The other half was falling back asleep.

“Dean,” John Winchester replied. “You sound asleep.”

“‘M not. Wide awake over here. Nothing but sunshine n’ rainbows.”

“Hmm.” John didn’t seem convinced. The sounds of raised voices and strange bird calls filtered through the phone, piercing through the fog in Dean’s head. John forged onward. “Listen, I’m in this little city in Brazil. Belo Quinto. Did you get the package I sent?”

Now Dean levered his sleep-heavy body into a sitting position, rubbing grit from his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, totally.”

“Have you opened it?”

Dean hadn’t. He’d been avoiding doing just that, actually. Packages from his estranged dad were always bad news.

“You haven’t opened it.”

“I’m doing that right now,” Dean assured, reaching past the phone on his nightstand to scoop a small package wrapped in brown paper and twine onto his lap. Days worth of dust poofed into the air as he moved it. Nearly every inch was covered in postage with little pictures of palm trees and sunsets and other presumably Brazilian landmarks. “You put enough stamps on it, old man?”

He shook it near his ear as John grumbled some reply. Faint clacking and muffled noises informed him it was probably some paper and trinkets. Anything would be better than the last package.

“Better not have sent me animal parts and smudge sticks again,” he mumbled to himself.

“What?” John’s voice crackled through the speaker.

“Nothing.”

“I think this will be the one.”

Dean grunted non-committally. Part of why John sent him packages was to convince Dean that he wasn’t crazy and that things really did go bump in the night. So far, he’d been unsuccessful. 

Dean believed those things were real for John. The man never dedicated himself lightly, this cause was as concrete and tangible as the Empire State Building to him. It was all or nothing for him. But the monsters John spoke of were just as real to Dean as guardian angels, bigfoot, and the thing under his bed. Which was to say, not at all.

It was only recently that John had reconnected with Dean. He had this thing: magical thinking. Nothing could convince him that it was a completely mundane house fire that killed Dean’s mother. After that tragedy, he stuck it out with a young Dean and his infant brother Sam for a few years before Child Protective Services descended. It was hard to justify their constant change of addresses. Not to mention, the strange and often black market purchases John would make, in place of food and clothing for his kids.

Dean had no idea where John disappeared to after he and Sam were taken away. Up until a year ago, when Bobby had pulled him aside while he was replacing a spark plug and informed him that John was on the phone in the office.

“Don’t do anything you don’t want to,” Bobby said, keeping a steadying hand on Dean’s shoulder. His foster-father-turned-legal guardian always got up in arms whenever John was mentioned. Dean could only imagine the ice that must have greeted John. “I don’t know how he found you but he said he just wants to talk. You should get to decide that.”

Dean wiped his hands on a cloth,  observing the grease-stained cement instead of Bobby’s face. He didn’t want to give that man - his _father_ \- the time of day. But he couldn’t deny that he had always wondered who John really was. Was he the driven, vengeful force Dean remembered from his lackluster childhood or had time mellowed him? 

It had been a long time. Maybe they could make up, even if it was just a little. Things had never settled between them, and Dean figured that given everything, he owed John.

So they talked.

“Oh, wow,” Dean said presently, laying the items from the package on his covers. There were a few postcards from cities across Brazil, each slightly worn on the edges like they’d been carried a long time. He could imagine John picking them off racks in crammed little tourist shops, fluttering in the wind created by an oscillating fan trying to push back the heat behind the counter. Perhaps wondering what Dean might like. At that thought, he felt a hole open up in his stomach. 

He dropped the postcards to poke through the rest. A little figure of the Jesus statue in Rio. A scratched key with a tag tied to it. Dean flipped the tag over to see numbers. Coordinates. 

Puzzling. Maybe it was one of John’s odd charms.

John followed alleged supernatural phenomena across the globe. When Dean dared to ask why, John said he was helping people. Looking for the thing that got Mary, so it would never get anyone else. 

That’s noble, Dean had said. 

It’s necessary, John replied.Dean remembered John was a veteran, someone compelled by an extreme sense of duty to those he thought were vulnerable. Although, in this case, he thought people were vulnerable to… Dean didn’t know. Ghosts, or something. 

Dean had spent his early life as Sam’s sole support. He understood doing anything for his loved ones. So, while John may be a few screws short, Dean supposed he had to admire his mission.

Sam didn’t agree. When he heard Dean had established contact with their dad, he hadn’t spoken to Dean for a week. Then they had the screaming match of the century. Dean was surprised it didn’t bring the building crumbling down on top of them. It had ended with both of them curled up in Dean’s massive bed like old times, drying the tears from their faces.

“I hate John, Dean,” Sam said, voice raw. He squeezed Dean’s hand. “I—I just need you to understand that.”

Dean squeezed back. “I got the message. You don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to.”

“You don’t have to talk to him either. He abused us, Dean. CPS took us away for a reason. He’s crazy, he’s volatile, he’s obsessed.” Sam’s voice took on an edge of steel. Dean’s lip curled in soft fondness. “He treated you like a child soldier, Dean. You—that hurt you so much. Bobby still has to tell you to stop with the internalizing-everything-bullshit.”

“It’ll be okay, Sam. We’re just talking. He seems different.”

Sam’s voice got very small, completely at odds with his height. “I just can’t see you hurt again.”

“You won’t, bitch.”

“...Jerk.”

At the bottom of the package was a long string of shiny black beads with a silver crucifix dangling on the end. He picked it up with one hand, watching the tiny crucified Jesus gleam in the dull light of morning. What the hell? “A necklace?”

“Well, it’s not really a necklace,” John began to explain when Dean’s phone beeped, signalling a new caller.

“Hang on,” Dean interrupted, desperate for any excuse to get away from this situation. “I’ve got another call.”

He put John on hold with a hasty click and took the new call. It could have been a scammer, a telemarketer, an angry ex, he didn’t care. Before he could even get out a greeting, Bobby was on him.

“You better have a good reason to be late again, boy.  It's going to be the third time this week.”

Dean’s head dropped between his shoulders.. Suddenly he did care. Fuck. “Bobby—”

“Do you even own an alarm clock or is it divine intervention you’re waiting on?”

The red numbers of his alarm clock blinked innocently at him from the nightstand. Dean shuffled the contents of John’s package  out of the way, squinting at the display. The alarm light was off. He’d forgotten to set it.

Bobby’s muffled voice shouted something down the line, probably to one of the other mechanics. Then he returned to Dean. “I’m giving your 9:00 AM to Benny. You better get down here within the hour or you’ll be sweeping after hours and taking all the angry calls for a month.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean mumbled as he rubbed his temples. There wasn’t anyone whose opinion was more important to him than Bobby’s; except Sam. Gruff banter was one thing but he could hear the sincerity of the disappointment this time.

There was silence for a few seconds and then Bobby’s voice grew soft. “Have you been doing alright, son? This isn’t like you.”

“It’s fine, Bobby,” Dean scowled. He was a grown man, he didn’t need to spill his heart. He’d get over it. “Look, I’ve got John on the other line, I’ll be there soon.”

Bobby huffed at the mention of John. “I’d ask you to tell him ‘hi’ for me but I don’t like the bastard.”

Dean didn’t like John either, sometimes. Especially when he sent him weird stuff from his travels. He often regretted giving the guy his address. “Bye, Bobby.”

Beep. The line switched back to John.

“John,” Dean said in greeting.

“Dean—” John began.

Beep beep.

“Hold on,” Dean interjected before switching the line again. 

Damn, he was popular today.

Caller number three launched right into it. “Hey, I know we were going to get together tonight for that thing you like, at the club? With the five dollar drinks. But something came up with Jess and she has to cover for someone so—”

“Sammy,” Dean chuckled. Some of the tension melted out of his shoulders. 

“Why do you sound happy about that? And it’s Sam.”

“I’m not, you just wouldn’t believe the morning I’m having. It’s good to hear your voice.”

Sam huffed, ostensibly annoyed, but badly hiding his fond amusement. “Yeah, okay, Dean. Should we reschedule?”

“I’m not a lawyer, I don’t have a schedule. Just phone me when you’ve got another free night. It doesn’t even have to be the nightclub, it could be a strip club.”

“I don’t think so.” But Sam’s voice was warm. “Lisa lets you go to strip clubs?”

“She’s cool like that.”

“I’m glad there’s so much confidence in your relationship, but I think if I ever agreed to the strip club, you would have to be dying.”

Sam was not one for casual sexual exploits or risque entertainment. Dean didn’t stop throwing the suggestion out there anyway. He exaggerated a choking sound, like he was dying without oxygen, and Sam sighed heavily.

“Bye, Dean.”

“Bye,” Dean chuckled.

Beep.

“John, I’ve got to go, I’m late for work.”

“Right,” John said, sounding disgruntled. There was another bird call and a shuffling sound, like boots shifting over sand. “My time’s almost up anyway. I’ll call you soon.”

Dean hoped soon wasn’t too soon. “Alright. Bye.”

“Goodbye, Dean.”

He hung up the handset, considered it for a moment, then picked it up again and dialed an oft-called number.

“ _You’ve reached Lisa Braeden_ ,” said the answering machine with way too much pep. “ _I’m not at home right now so leave me a message_.” Beep.

“Hey, Lisa,” Dean said with nervous cheer. He wound and unwound the phone cord around his finger like some infatuated girl. The thought made him stop. “Sam cancelled for tonight so I was hoping you’d be free to go to the club. It’s five dollar drinks night. You know when I’m off work, call me.”

The apartment echoed with the clatter of hanging up and despite the conversations with his most important people fresh in his ears, he was acutely aware of how empty the room felt. It was bereft of what had once made it his home.

His studio was simple and large. It had to be big enough for both Sam and Dean, at one time. There was a modest kitchen area right inside the front door, just a stove and a fridge and a microwave on the countertop with a rickety formica table and a few scratched wooden chairs. A divider gave a sense of privacy to the bed area, dominated by the huge super king and flanked by dressers and nightstands. The bed faced the living area, strewn with mismatched couches and chairs. Their priority had been comfort, not aesthetics. The long wall was made up of floor-to-ceiling windows, cloudy where Dean had never been able to clean them near the ceiling. To the left of the living room was the door to the small bathroom.

All in all, not a bad place. It was comfy, roomy, and it was theirs.

Well, his.

Dean’s presence slowly dominated the apartment. A coffee table full of empty bottles and classic car magazines, a mess which would have earned him a scolding not long ago and probably a flyer for the local Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. A shelf of cassettes—Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Johnny Cash.

Bits and pieces of Sam still lingered—his cassette tapes (teach-yourself-French and hair rock), a huge flannel shirt or two still hidden in the dressers, stale whole grain cereal pushed to the back of the cupboard, a mostly empty bottle of his fancy shampoo under the bathroom sink.

Sometimes Dean thought he was over Sam moving out, then he would run into traces of him and get hit with a freight train of loss.

A therapist would probably say he was over-dependent, stuck in his role as a caretaker, a parentalized child. But he didn’t have a therapist, just Sam’s voice in the back of his head telling him he probably should.

The worst was the emptiness. The space where someone should be but no one was. Sometimes Lisa was there. It had been Sam for a long time. He could wake up and roll over and someone he’d give his life for would be safe nearby, snoring with hair all over the place.

But Sam was grown, he had Jess now, he had a career. Dean had to let him go. He had to wake up alone. He had to be okay with that.

He told himself he was. 

He really wasn’t.

It ached between his shoulder blades straight through his chest.

He rushed through his morning routine to stave off anymore depressing thoughts—shower, shave, dress, eat. Then he practically ran to the subway station. (If anyone asked, he’d admit to a brisk walk.) His MetroCard just barely covered the ride. Bobby gave him a stern look when he arrived at Singer Auto but the old softie couldn’t keep it up for too long so Dean just grinned and got to work. 

He fixed cars. He could make engines purr and rides smooth as French chocolate. He felt good about it. Proud, even. These complicated machines full of nuances needed to be tended to down to the tiniest part lest the whole system fail, just how the smallest flick of a finger made the perfect note in a perfect song. Everything worked together as one gleaming unit of power, and when an engine roared like an awesome beast taking flight, Dean flew too. 

Most of the time.

Bobby always assured him that he hired Dean for his skills and not because he was his kid. But despite the reassurances, it felt like filler. Like a pit stop he’d spent too much time at. He worked at his guardian’s place, doing something that felt good, not right.

He fixed cars, but he wanted something else.

The feeling only got worse once Sam moved out. With the outward locus of his energy gone, he had no choice but to turn it inward. And once he thought about it, he realized it was easy. He wanted to make a difference. Help people. Not by fixing their cars, but in a real impactful way. 

It ran in the family. His biological father joined up to protect people. His little brother took up family law to protect children. His adoptive father took children in to give them a chance at a good life. It was Dean’s turn to do something real.

He wanted a passion, a mission. A calling.

He wanted to mean something.

But right now, his days were car after car after car. 

The day blurred by and it felt like mere moments passed before he was meeting Lisa at the club. He managed to convince Benny to third wheel too. The bouncer nodded when he entered and Dean grinned back, deftly bumping his shoulder in a friendly hello. 

The dark space was barely illuminated by a flashing blue light, which scanned across the writhing crowd of dancers. Salty sweat, alcohol, and the rubbery scent of shoe soles leaving skid marks on the floor hung in the air. Lisa appeared and greeted him with a long wet kiss. They melted into each other and were attached at the hip from the bar to the dance floor, where his muscles unlocked and his jaw loosened and he couldn’t stop smiling. 

People could hardly see him here. He was practically anonymous. Blasting out of the speakers was a singer wondering what love was or something equally typical, but Dean didn’t really hear the words. He was fairly certain nobody did. It was all about the beat. The pulsing bass united the crowd into one big joyus mass. He didn’t have to think about it, he only had to move. Only had to rock his hips against Lisa, who swayed into his arms, looking sly and perfect in the flashes of blue light.

During nights like this Dean forgot about filler and John and disappointing his loved ones. Those nights, he felt free of something heavy and hollow that had dogged him his whole life. Instead he was light enough twirl Lisa, to slide away, and jump back to retaliate when she took the opportunity to slap his ass. 

Before long, Benny, who complained about being too old to get down when Dean dragged him along, was losing his mind on the dance floor. The bartender had cut him off. Dean leaned onto Lisa and they both laughed when Benny popped his hips from side to side and winced. No amount of inebriation was going to make his joints any younger.

Lisa put her soft lips against the shell of Dean’s ear and shouted, “We should bounce!”

Dean grinned and grabbed her hand. They were disgustingly giggly on the subway, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Everything was soft and fluffy. He hadn’t drank as much as Benny but it was still enough to make kissing Lisa silly in public seem like a good idea. She tasted like alcohol and strawberry lip gloss. Or maybe strawberry alcohol. He swore she was making him even more drunk.

Then they were in bed and he could feel every inch of her skin and she did things with her mouth that made him yelp and they were both smiling and trading breathless laughter and they were so alive.

They were so happy.

Sunlight burned across his eyelids. Dean blinked and lifted his head toward it, noticing the disturbed covers next to him. Lisa had left sometime before he awoke.

Dean dropped his head back into the pillow and closed his eyes, trying to find that zen place Sam always talked about. This wasn’t how he wanted to wake up. He ached, and not the good after-sex kind of ache. Maybe it was disappointment or resignation or irritation. 

Did he expect any different? Sex with Lisa was great. Amazing, even. He knew they both had a lot of fun. She brushed over the tender parts of himself and brought out the best in him, and he liked to think he did the same for her. For a few moments, Dean allowed himself to think of it as love. That after an endless line of one-night stands, he finally found someone he could invest in.

Who could blame him for wanting a little more? Believe him, he would be the last person that would think he would want to settle down, but Sam was taken care of, he had Jess and a life now. He was thriving. And that had been all Dean had ever wanted.

But what did he do now? What did he want?

Someone to wake up next to, for starters.

He might be more serious about the relationship than Lisa was, if the fact that he always woke up to an empty bed was any indicator. There was always an excuse: work, family, errands. There was always something more important. She got what she wanted out of him, a night of drink and dance, and then left.

They always left.

He groaned and rolled out of bed when he noticed the time. Bobby would have his ass if he was late again. 

He turned the shower as hot as he could take and stepped inside. The water pressure left something to be desired, he wasn’t exactly living at the Hilton, but the heat was refreshing, at least. He scrubbed his hair, pensive. 

He should talk to Lisa. They didn’t do that a lot. It was mostly blowing off steam, with them. At the club or in bed. Of course, if she managed to stick around for even a minute they probably would have loads of conversations. But it’s whatever. They’d just have to make time.

Ducking under the spray, he squeezed his eyes shut to rinse the soap out of his hair. When he opened them again, he blinked. Once. Twice.

A thin stream of blood swirled down the drain at his feet. Stark red against the white shower floor.

The night before flashed across his eyes as his brain struggled to connect the blood to himself. Had he injured himself somehow? There hadn’t been any blood in the bed, so it would have to be recent. This morning. Right now.

He raised his arms into view and everything stopped. Blood flowed freely from his wrists, almost bubbling to the surface like some kind of volcanic flow. It burned down his forearms and dripped onto his feet. The shower was hot, but somehow every inch of red was hotter.

_Oh my God_ , he thought, deceptively calm. _I have to call an ambulance_. 

Dean took a breath and the world rushed back into motion. The tile came up to meet him when he stumbled out of the shower and collapsed to the floor against the sink, panting for breath. Blinding, white hot pain came in strikes, like massive heartbeats, compounding the ache he noticed in bed. Almost as if he was affixed to something, he couldn’t move, could only gasp for air that escaped him and squirm like a pinned bug. His wrists shifted to accommodate an invisible force. He let out a weak cry at the invasive, unnatural feeling of bones moving under his skin.

He was the only person in the apartment. It was an open studio, so he could see everywhere at once, and no one had been inside. Nobody was there, nobody was doing this to him. He was alone. 

He’d been left behind. He’d been abandoned. Lisa, Sam, Bobby, even John. No one was here to help. No one was going to save him.

They always left.

He didn’t pass out. Even once the strikes stopped and the despair faded, he marred the white bathroom tile, naked and shivering in a puddle of blood and water, unable to move through the pain and shock. All he could hear was the hissing of the shower and the chattering of his teeth. The air was thick and tangy. The water and blood grew cold against his skin, biting and tearing at the parts of him that hadn’t been abused. 

He was only halfway aware of a voice and a face, someone crouching and shouting, the rough pads of warm fingers trawling down his numb face, over and over, like they were trying to pull him back. Like a plea.

Lazily, he rolled his eyes towards the person and tipped his head, trying to focus. Everything was so heavy.

Stupid suit, long hair, taller than was fair for a younger brother.

Sam.

His brother moved him, lying him flat on his back with a towel under his head and over his wrists, pressing on the wounds, trying to staunch the bleeding. Dean thought he said something like “ambulance” and “soon” and “please.” There was a smear of red on his cheek.

Sam was kneeling in the bloody water with his nice pants and Dean wanted to protest. Suddenly, that was the most important thing. That Sammy didn’t ruin his suit, his expensive lawyer clothes. They couldn’t afford that. Sam needed that suit to work with clients. He must have tried to voice his thoughts because Sam shushed him. Dean’s eyes were weighted to the side, all he could see was Sam’s soaking pants, but he could hear well enough to know that Sam was choking on a string of promises and pleas. His grip on Dean’s wrists was desperate and firm, but his voice wavered as he continued to shush and talk.

“It’s okay, Dean. Don’t move, don’t talk. Help is coming. We’ll figure this out, I swear, we will. You don’t need to do this, I’ll help you. Please, Dean, just hang on…”

Dean’s gut twisted. He finally passed out.

 

* * *

 

Shadows of people and halos of light flew by and his eyelids fluttered as he struggled to maintain a blissful state between being awake and fully unconscious, where there was no pain but he was still just a step behind reality. Hands loaded him onto soft surfaces, his skin pinched all over, his heart beat an uneven tattoo, like it wasn’t sure if it should give up yet.

_Not yet_ , Dean tried to tell it. 

He wasn’t sure if it listened as he slipped into complete darkness.  
  



	2. Hallowed be thy name

The doctor inspecting his wrist was asking, “What is your pain level?”

Dean was upright in a hospital bed, in one of those butt-baring gowns, arms spread out for inspection. He watched her poke the open wound in his skin, wincing at the thought of someone’s appendages being where they shouldn’t be, but not because it hurt. 

“Zero,” he said. “That’s weird, right?” He felt like it was just any other day, except his wrists had been torn open.

The doctor didn’t respond, just poking around the still-bleeding wound. She flipped his hand over to do the same to the opening on the other side, demonstrating how the wound went completely through. Dean glanced at Sam, who stood by his bed, stiff as a board, avoiding Dean’s eyes. Aside from cursory questions about his pain, Sam hadn’t said much. Dark stained his pants and suit jacket, a reminder that despite a lack of pain, everything that had transpired was very real. Sam must have had a chance to change, Dean had been in the ER for awhile while the doctors fought to stabilize him, but he hadn’t. 

Bobby knew what was going on. Sam had called him while Dean was under, so he wasn’t in any trouble with the shop. 

Sam had this hangdog look on his face like he’d done something wrong. Dean didn’t want to get into it with other people in the room, but he was going to give Sam a piece of his mind when they had a moment. This was in no way his fault. No one had asked him to explain what happened, but torn up wrists in the bathroom? Dean knew what it looked like.

“How are things, Dean?” The doctor put down her silver utensils and met Dean’s gaze, careful and clinical. He couldn’t see anything but her eyes, everything obscured with masks and hair nets. “Experience much stress lately?”

Dean shrugged as someone replaced the doctor, swabbing the cuts and preparing a needle for stitches. There was his job, of course. Something he was good at but nothing he found fulfilling. His brother had moved out to live with his girlfriend. And then there was Lisa.

“Problems with a significant other?” the doctor insisted.

“I guess,” Dean relented. 

“And what are the problems?”

Dean flickered a look at Sam again, who was managing to look both uninterested and completely focused all at once. He didn’t often discuss his sex life with his brother, much less his _love_ life. It wasn’t like he wanted to air out all his personal problems for the world to see. But he was exhausted and more than a little annoyed with the whole situation. The ease he found at the club last night was eons away now, and he just wanted to stew in peace.

His mumble tasted bitter. “I’m not very significant to her.”

The doctor nodded and Dean felt like he’d confirmed something. He scowled.

“I know what you’re thinking and I didn’t do this. I didn’t try to kill myself.”

“Dean,” the doctor said, gentle but firm. “It’s pretty obvious with wounds like this that they’re self-inflicted. We’re going to keep you overnight for observation. We need to make sure you’re not going to try this again.”

His chest tightened and he clenched his fist, much to the displeasure of the person sewing him up. He watched for a second as the needle slid through his numb skin, sewing the holes (honest to God _holes_ ) into jagged, Frankenstein’s-monster seams in his flesh with stark black thread. 

Bright red blood leaked sluggishly out of the wounds, no longer pouring freely. The wounds were huge, actually. Splitting his skin and deforming his wrist like someone had pulled a deep cut apart, tearing the skin above and below the largest part of the wound so that it was a hole with two lines of split flesh extending an inch up his arm. The epicenter of the wound was really a hole, like whatever made the wound had been wide and round, and while he was trying hard not to look closely, he could see wet pulpy flesh inside and little bits of white that he assumed were wrist bones.

The wounds were huge and they were deep and he did _not_ have anything to do with them.

“How is it physically possible for me to carve holes through both of my wrists before passing out?” he argued, but the doctor was already shaking her head.

“Lydia will finish up with your wrists and then you need to rest,” she said. Lydia paused her ministrations to nod at Dean.

The doctor beckoned Sam over and with one last careful look at Dean, Sam left the room, leaning down to hear the doctor’s low voice as they discussed how fragile and helpless Dean was in the hallway. Dean wanted to throw an arm over his face, to sink into the bed and disappear, but he had to stay still for the stitches. The attention and pity was killing him faster than gaping wrist wounds ever would.

“What do I do?” he groaned. “What’s happening to me?”

Lydia just kept sewing.

Dean stared at the white popcorn ceiling, only imagining it was the white tile of his bathroom for a moment. It would be dripping blood on his face, if that were true. 

What the hell was going on? He swore that there had been something in his bathroom, something pinning him, piercing through his wrists. As if the physical pain hadn’t been enough, he’d felt the crushing weight of abandonment and despair. Sure, he might have been frustrated or lonely every once in awhile, but that was a whole other level of emotional torment. It was so deep and visceral, almost deeper than he could handle. It felt familiar in the way a dish he’d only had in childhood was familiar, a distant foggy memory, but even older than that, like someone else’s childhood a long time ago.

More than just his wrists were messed up. He was covered in bruises from tumbling around the bathroom—they were on his temple, the ridges of his spine, the plane of his shins, and the bony part of his hip. The massive loss of blood made everything feel just shy of reality. And to top it all off, his mouth was unusually sticky and dry. It should have paled in comparison to all the other bodily trauma, but instead it was insistiently at the front of his mind.

Lydia closed up the last hole and wrapped his wrist in gauze. She gave his hand a sympathetic pat and left as Sam crept back into the room, arms full of crisp papers that he immediately dumped on one of those uncomfortable plastic hospital chairs in the corner.

“Hospital paperwork,” was all the attention he gave the paper. He was at Dean’s side instantly, reaching out to touch and then pulling back at the last second, nervous. This was the first moment they had alone together where Dean was fully conscious and Sam obviously had no idea how to even start, so Dean started for him.

“Can I have some water?”

Sam was nodding before Dean even finished the question. “Yes, of course. Anything you need, just tell me.” He was talking about more than just water, but thankfully Sam disappeared to the nurses station before he could push. 

Dean closed his eyes for a second, blocking out the dim hospital room with the beeping monitors and the whole situation. But Sam was back with a pitcher of water, a plastic cup, and a straw. He moved to help Dean sit up but when Dean shot him a glare he backed off. Dean may have fucking holes in his hands, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t sit up in bed by himself.

The water was okay. Dean discovered he was able to grip things just fine and insisted that he hold the cup by himself. He practically poured the water down his throat. He wished he could say it took the edge off, but it didn’t. It did unstick his tongue from the sides of his mouth. Frowning at the cup, he could only conclude he was thirsty for something else.

“Do you want some more?” Sam offered. 

Dean just shook his head and put the cup to the side. Something told him it would be useless.

Sam shuffled the paperwork together and cleared the chair, dragging it to Dean’s bedside, where he spent a few moments with his face in his hands, not looking at Dean at all.

“Hey,” Dean said, nudging the side of his head with a finger. “Don’t look like that. Everything’s okay now.”

Sam peeked through his fingers and then dragged them through his hair, sighing a harsh, wobbly breath. He was obviously trying not to break down. “Dean, this is not okay. They’re keeping you overnight to make sure you don’t try to… kill yourself. Again. You lost so much blood. You—you flatlined. You _died_. They had to revive you.” He had a hard time saying the words. “So no, Dean. Nothing is okay. You’re not okay. I just—” 

Sam reached out and Dean automatically gave him a hand. While Dean thought he was offering his support to his suffering brother, Sam probably thought the same thing, and that couldn’t stand. Dean was supposed to be the one keeping it together for his little brother, he was always the one who buried his pain and ignored his problems to make sure Sammy was alright. It had never been a sure thing that they both would survive what life threw at them and Dean made sure that if only one of them would make it, it would be Sam. So he gave Sam a smile and gripped him tight.

“Well you’ve got nothing to worry about because I have never wanted to kill myself and never will. I didn’t do this. So, boom. Problem solved. Go home, you must have a lot of work to do.”

“No, I’m not letting you sweep this under the rug. I’m staying, and you’re going to tell me what’s wrong. I didn’t see it before but obviously you’ve been dealing with a lot. We can work this out together, you don’t have to feel alone in this.”

Dean buried his instinctual defensiveness by mock gagging. “Did the doctor tell you to say that or did you read that in a self-help book?”

Sam huffed, unimpressed with Dean’s nonchalance. “Dean, I’m being serious.”

“So am I!”

“You’re trying to joke this away. It doesn’t work like that. You need to talk to someone. Even if it’s not me, we’ll find a therapist, okay?”

Dean threw down Sam’s hand with open disdain. “My own brother doesn’t believe me.”

“What do you want me to believe? There was no one else in your apartment! It was just you, bleeding out on the floor. If Bobby hadn’t called me to check on you because you were late again…” Sam choked on whatever he would have said next and buried his face in his hands again. “I should have seen it. I shouldn’t have cancelled. I’m so sorry, Dean. I’m so sorry…”

“Sammy,” Dean insisted, gut twisting over Sam’s pain. This was too much for the kid. “Stop, it’s not your fault, it’s not anybody’s fault. The doctors will watch me overnight and they won’t let me leave if they don’t think I’m ready. And I promise you, I will be ready. Just go home, go hug Jess, get some sleep, get ready for school or work or whatever’s on your busy lawyer schedule. I’m fine.”

Sam released a shuddering breath and lowered his hands. “I called out of work for the week. And school.” 

“What?”

“None of those things are as important as you.”

Dean swallowed down a response he knew Sam wouldn’t like. He shouldn’t disrupt his career just because Dean had an incident. “Fine. You’re a big boy, do whatever you want.”

Sam leaned forward, eyes drilling into Dean’s skull. “I want you to tell me what’s wrong.”

Dean threw an arm over his eyes and groaned. It was going to be a long week.

 

* * *

 

The next afternoon, Sam handled everything related to discharge—he did all the paperwork and all the signing-out procedures. He even drove them to Dean’s apartment building in his beat up old Ford. Dean winced whenever he saw it, it was one of those rusted, clanking cars that needed to be put out of its misery, but it was still getting Sam where he needed to go, so he had to respect that.

Dean’s apartment looked like a crime scene. The kitchen area and main room had been scattered and there was a clear path through the upended furniture and miscellanea where the emergency team had made its way to the bathroom. The bathroom itself was another story entirely. It was still puddled with pink water, there were piles of sopping bloody cloth in the corners, and red streaked the shower walls like a horror film. 

Self-consciously he rubbed the bandages around his wrists. There were already faint pink dots on the white gauze and he knew they’d have to be changed soon.

While he hadn’t been entirely aware for the episode, it was hard to imagine all of this destruction because of two comparatively small wounds in his wrists. He knew it couldn’t have been more than him writhing around on the ground. But considering the pain, the massive, earth-shattering spikes pounding into his body, pinning him so he couldn’t escape the agony… The wreckage of his apartment was entirely appropriate.

Sam called from the other room, so Dean left the scene behind.

Somehow, it was already evening. Sam was cuddled up in Dean’s big bed, eyes half-open, speaking softly. When sasquatch insisted he sleep over like old times to keep an eye on Dean, sasquatch got what he wanted.

“Do you smell flowers?”

Dean sniffed quizzically. Just the normal smells—the old dusty wood of the building, lingering savory scents from when he made burgers before everything went to shit, the detergent from his laundry. “No.”

Sam yawned and mumbled, “Weird, smells like roses or something.”

Dean sat on the edge of the bed but didn’t lie down. Last time he’d been in it, it had been he and Lisa having a good time. He rubbed his wrists again. That night felt a million miles away now.

His bed was a massive super king, which could probably fit six or more people if they spooned. They’d purchased it mostly because it was the only bed long enough for Sam, who had lived most his adult life with his feet hanging off the end of every bed. When they moved out of Bobby’s together they decided that the large studio they shared would be everything they’d always wanted, which included a bed big enough to share and long enough for Sam.

They’d always shared beds. Back when they were with John, they got a bed to share in a double motel room, John got the other. Different foster homes would often clump the kids up two to a bed, and no way was Dean sharing with anyone but his little brother. Bobby’s apartment only had space for one king sized bed in the kids’ room. It had been difficult to sleep when Sam finally moved in with Jess. Even if it meant he could bring Lisa over whenever he wanted, it still sucked that no one was there consistiently.

He’d never told Sam or anyone else for that matter, but Dean hated waking up without someone he loved. It wasn’t just that he had become forcibly accustomed to it because of his childhood, he also just wanted to know that the people he cared about most were alright, were nearby. That they were just as committed as he was.

Sam’s eyes had fully closed and he rolled face first into his pillow with a groan, sensing how Dean was working himself up. “Just go to sleep, Dean. We can deal with everything else in the morning.”

Sam was out like a light, probably exhausted from the shock and the stress. Dean was entirely within his rights to slip into a healing sleep too, but instead he laid in the dark with his eyes wide open and his hands folded over his stomach. His wrists still didn’t hurt, strangely enough, although the aching thirst in his throat just about made up for the lack of pain. It wouldn’t be soothed by water or soda or coffee. Hell, he’d even tried a couple beers. Nothing. He’d live, though. It was just a drop of what the wounds had been. 

No way in hell was he mentioning it to Sam. The situation was already weird and stressful enough without random extreme thirst added to it. Sam would exhaust the library card catalogue and any number of medical texts would tell him that Dean either had terminal cancer or had already died. So, no, his health nut brother was not getting every dirty detail of his condition.

It calmed him to know that Sam was close by, but not enough to keep him from eventually falling into a fitful sleep. He dreamed of faraway places in languages he didn’t know and of being left for dead. Nobody cared. He’d been abandoned by even his own father. And it hurt. Not just the stakes pushing the bones in his wrist apart, but the scorn from everyone around. The inability to hide himself in his lowest moment. Each agony was inseparable and it felt as if a spear had been driven through the deepest part of himself, like his very soul was flayed and laid bare.

Sam eyed the dark circles under his eyes the next morning, always looming just a few steps behind. Dean somehow managed to do the impossible and get a little privacy in a studio apartment when Sam was distracted righting furniture and cleaning up the mess. Annoyingly, Sam wouldn’t let him do anything too strenuous, like pick up magazines. 

Blood soaked through the bandages wrapped around his wrists and upper arms. There were little spots of red on the white. He’d have to change them soon. Already he was tired of that ritual. 

He went to the bathroom and unwrapped the bandages over the sink so the blood would drip down the drain. It didn’t seem like the wounds would stop bleeding. Every time he changed the bandages he got a good look at the stitches and they were always wet, never clotted. 

Dean had a horrible vision about bleeding for the rest of his life, blood all over friends and family and cars and tools and bedsheets. Flowing down shower drains again and again. But that was impossible. They had to scab eventually. They had to.

The one small mercy was that it didn’t seem like the blood festered. He was diligent about keeping the wounds clean but that could only do so much, the blood seemed to keep itself thick and fresh without his ministrations. It could be worse, could be clear fluid and discolored skin. He seemed as healthy as he could be, given the circumstances.

It wasn’t that blood itself freaked him out. He’d been injured well enough throughout his life that he’d needed more than a dozen stitches, not to mention the times it was someone else’s blood on his hands. That, he could deal with. The reactions from everyone else, not so much. He could manage himself and he had been managing himself since childhood, but nobody else seemed to think so once blood was involved. The way people moved to help him with everything… 

It was frustrating.

It was pathetic.

Clinking noises from the living area. Sam gathered up an armful of empty bottles and shot Dean a searching look. Dean only shrugged, unwilling to engage. Maybe he was coping badly. Whatever. His habits were his own business. Sam had to stop worrying.

Sam dumped the bottles in the bin by the door and thus finished cleaning and moved to the bed, which was strewn with law books in various stages of being read. He didn’t need to say it but Dean knew it was true. Dean was disrupting his life with this weird malady. 

Dean began awkwardly, “So how’s studying going? You’ve got your third year exams, right? Big stuff.”

Sam nodded without looking up from his book. “Yeah, been cramming for months. Between work and everything I’ve just been doing what I can. I need to do more, though.” His voice climbed a few octaves with anxiety when he said, “It’s not like the rest of my life hinges on this or anything!” His head snapped up, guilt flashing across his face. “But it’s fine, I’m doing great, you don’t need to worry. I’m here to spend time with you.”

They fell into an uncomfortable silence. Dean felt useless. He was staring into the fridge, at the leftovers and beers that fueled his life, when the wall-mounted kitchen phone rang. The first ring was like a bolt directly to the heart. He stared at it for a couple rings. He could leave it for the answering machine, then he wouldn’t have to deal with whatever was on the other end. But it was only a moment before he relented. Might as well get it over with.

“Hey, Dean,” Lisa said over the line.

“Hey,” he said back, relaxing. He’d been worried it might be John. Couldn’t deal with that today. “I didn’t get to say goodbye to you the other day. How are you?”

“I’m good.” Now Dean heard the note of tension in her voice. “Do you have some time? I need to talk to you.”

Dean pulled a kitchen chair up to the phone. “Yeah, of course, anything.”

“Right, anything,” she repeated. She didn’t sound unkind when she said, “You know I care about you, Dean. Like, a lot. And this last year has been so much fun, I’ve loved every minute of it. But I think we should see different people.”

Dean’s train of thought clicked like the end of a tape. The screen was empty. He had the phone in a death grip. “What?”

“I just feel like you’re more serious about this relationship than I am and if we’re not looking for the same thing it’s not going to work out anyway.”

“You’re breaking up with me…” Dean clarified. “Over the phone?”

“Would you prefer I did it at the club? I only see you there and in bed, Dean.”

He started to, but couldn't refute that. Had they even ever been on a date? Like, nice clothes and a reasonably expensive restaurant with small portions and dim lighting? He was drawing a blank.

Lisa was still talking. He only knew how stressful this was for her when she talked too fast. “I don’t want to keep this going and we end up hurting each other. When you go in, you go _all_ in. Like yesterday. You just get this look in your eyes and… Dean you deserve someone who can give you that.”

Dean got his voice to work again. “And you can’t give that?”

“No,” she said quietly.

There was mutual silence over the phone for a few moments. Dean leaned his forehead against the edge of the counter until it hurt like a slice through his skin. He could still feel the blood-heavy bandages sticking to his wrists.

Maybe it was best that Lisa broke up with him. She didn’t deserve to deal with this. With him.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay,” Lisa said. “Thank you, Dean. For everything. I really mean it when I said I’ve loved every minute with you.”

“Yeah.” _But you didn’t love me_. “I did, too.” A heavy breath. “Take care, Lis.”

“You too.”

_Click_. 

Leaving the handset on the counter, he buried his face in his arms. While he had been dreading John’s promised call, he would have preferred that to what just happened. Finally he and Lisa had a real conversation, and it was to break up. 

He managed to suppress a full-body jolt when Sam’s hand appeared on his shoulder. Sam started to say Dean’s name softly. So gently. Like Dean was going to break. 

He had to get out of here. There couldn’t be one more moment of worried scrutiny or he’d lose it.

“I’m going to Bobby’s,” he said, rolling the hand off his shoulder and stalking towards the door, barely snatching his keys and leather jacket on the way out. Sam spun after him, frantic, but Dean pushed on. “Don’t follow me! I’ll be back tonight!”

The subway ride passed without incident, which was about as good as the subway could get. Bobby was surprised to see him but thankfully he wasn’t the same type of worrier Sam was, so the most he did was assign Dean some lighter tasks and give him one too many glances as he puttered around the shop. 

Singer Auto was one of those mom and pop businesses, making it a little out of place in New York. Bobby had grown up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but had left it and some bad memories behind. The shop was a little worn down, which Dean preferred to think of as well loved, with a rotating schedule of mechanics who always had more work than time. Bobby’s shop was popular. They did good, honest work. 

Dean usually got the cars that needed special care. Bobby had trained him on classic cars and John, back when he was still around, had taught Dean some of the upkeep of his own car. Today Bobby had assigned him something as far from classic as it could get—an outdated puke-gray Toyota Camry. Something easy but really boring. 

He caught some of the other mechanics whispering to each other when they didn’t know Dean was nearby and his face got hot at the thought that he was the latest gossip, but he grit his teeth and soldiered on. At least no one was mocking or pitying him here.

Benny approached and punched Dean’s arm, feather-light. “Heard something happened. How’re you holding up?”

Dean looked up from where he was replacing a screw in the dashboard. Not Benny.

“Look, Benny, it’s good to know you’re looking out for me, man, but I’m fine. Really. I just want to work.”

Benny’s eyes lingered on the thick bandages over Dean’s wrists and his mouth twisted as he fought a frown. “Okay, brother. But you need to talk, you know where I am.”

“Right,” Dean agreed in a tight voice. And they didn’t speak after that, because Dean didn’t need to talk. He needed a goddam moment of peace and quiet.

Traffic rushed by outside the open garage doors. Bobby’s shop had the luck of being on one of the streets that rarely clogged with traffic, which meant people drove faster. Everyone always had somewhere to be right now in New York. Wheels splashed dirty rainwater over the curb at the end of Singer Auto’s short driveway. Dean had moved on to a truly mundane oil replacement when an unusual spot across the street caught his eye. Wiping his hands on a cloth, he walked to the entrance of the garage, transfixed.

A figure stood across the street, only visible in glimpses between cars. They were tall, lanky. Familiar. When they raised their head, their face had dad’s nose and eyes, mom’s cheekbones. Long bangs hung over his face. He looked kinda like Dean.

He looked a lot like Sam.

The Sam look-alike watched Dean through traffic, intent on him, saying _don’t look away_ without words. Dean said his name to himself, quiet and confused. Sam was supposed to be at Dean’s apartment, reading or worrying or whatever it was he did without Dean around. 

The figure was almost alight on the dark dreary street. Water dripped off the hood of the bright blue raincoat buttoned over what would be a suit if he were really Sam. Dean squinted to make out the shoes, and yes, those were Sam’s nice shoes, gleaming with rain.

The atmosphere charged, like before lightning struck. Dean tensed. There was a glint in the look-alike’s eyes. Despite the oppressive presence of traffic, the honking and swooshing of fast-moving vehicles, Dean almost thought he could hear the look-alike inhale deep before taking a step off the curb.

Right into the path of an oncoming semi truck.

Dean couldn’t hear anything. No traffic, no mechanics whispering, no tools clanking. His throat ached because he was shouting. Even though he was just a look-alike, not Sam, not really Sam, _it couldn’t be Sam_ … 

He was screaming Sam’s name and barrelling into traffic.

Cars skidded into haphazard formations around him. Luckily, they were at an intersection, so drivers were prepared to slow, but one after another he crashed into bumpers slick with rain and jolted as cars honked, screaming on his heels.

Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw Bobby wading through the stopped traffic after him, but he only had eyes for the space vacated by the semi.

“Sam!” He splashed to his knees at the curb, casting around the ground for a body, for his brother, his stupid self-sacrificing brother. His throat gave out when he tried to shout again and instead he was horrified to realize it was a sob that ripped out of his lungs.

People scurried by on the sidewalk, watching him with wide eyes as he broke down right there. He gulped big heaves of air, trying to breathe, trying to stop the tears. Someone grabbed his shoulders, hauled him to his feet, shook him, embraced him, called him _idjit_. 

“Bobby,” Dean sobbed, scrabbling for a grip on his vest. “Sam was here, there was a truck. Oh God, it must have hit him. Sam was right here, Bobby…”

“There’s no one here, Dean.” Bobby had a wild look in his eyes, clearly scrambling to cope with his shock. His chest heaved and he hauled Dean against him in both a hug and a restraining hold. “There’s no one here. Sam’s at your apartment. He’s okay, you’re okay, boy. Stay with me.”

Dean practically collapsed onto Bobby with a keening cry. Heart pounding, blood rushing in his ears, vision white with panic. He was shaking too hard to stand. The thought of Sam crushed by the semi still at the forefront of his mind. After everything they survived, all that they sacrificed, how hard they fought. Just to lose Sam in an instant to some stupid shot at martyrdom. 

To have his brother ripped away and leave him behind.

Someone approached from behind. Bobby practically growled and fisted the back of Dean’s shirt, telling the interloper to fuck off. But they said something and Dean found himself with his head on Bobby’s thigh, jolting every once in awhile as the vehicle they were in bumped over potholes.

“Glad you’re back with us,” Bobby said softly, brushing an absent hand through Dean’s hair. Dean closed his eyes at that. No one did that except Sam during really bad moments, Bobby during only the worst. A long time ago, his mom had done it when he went to bed, as she said angels were watching over him.

What a load of bull that turned out to be.

Dean collected himself silently. While he had been unaware, the adrenaline and panic had worn off. He could think again, and was thinking that was certainly one of the strangest moments of his life. Damp collected on the lower parts of his jeans, making his socks and shoes heavy and wet, and there was dirty water staining his bandages. Jesus Christ he must have looked like a car wreck.

He turned his head to take in his surroundings. Rain pounded against the metallic roof of the car. No, it was a van. He and Bobby were in the front bench and Dean was sure if he sat up he could see more benches behind them. In the driver’s seat a man dressed entirely in black navigated through the streets.

“The good Father is driving us back to your apartment. Sam is waiting for you. You really shouldn’t have come into work.” Bobby muttered that last part.

“Father?” Dean questioned, gut involuntary clenching at the word. 

Bobby grunted some affirmative, but Dean sat up to see for himself. The benches behind theirs were packed with honest to God nuns, who watched him with mixed concern and curiosity, and were otherwise completely silent. The man in the driver’s seat waved a hand in acknowledgement and now that he’d shifted, Dean could see the white clerical collar at his throat. He was actually rather short in the seat, with a young face that hadn’t lost all of its baby fat. He definitely couldn’t be older than Dean, yet he was clearly ordained.

“What the hell?” Dean said. 

Bobby chuckled. “Those are my thoughts exactly.”

“You looked like you needed some help,” the Father said. His tone was neutral but soft. “We could give you a ride at least. The Sisters and I were just on our way back from a service venture, so it’s no problem.”

Dean felt heavy, like someone had dipped his limbs in lead. He drooped against Bobby, who supported him with a hand on each shoulder.

“You staying with me, boy?”

Dean opened his mouth to say _yes_ , but what came out instead was not a thought of his.

“Are you Father Castiel?” His throat clicked and jumped, struggling to form the words, like someone trying to manipulate a hand in a glove tailored for someone else.

Bobby stiffened against Dean, fingers digging into his shoulders, recognizing the odd tone and preparing for another outburst. The Father glanced in the rearview mirror with a narrowed gaze. 

“No, I’m Father Samandriel.” He paused to glance back at traffic and then ventured on. “Can I help you?”

This time Dean’s thought was in tandem with whatever was using his mouth. “No one can help me now.”

Father Samandriel’s eyes only had a moment to widen before the van crashed into something, throwing the rear into the air and tilting the front on its nose. People shrieked and Dean tumbled to the floor with a shock of agony. His back was on fire. 

Rolling onto his stomach, he ground his teeth. He would scream if he could breathe. Stripes of white-hot pain seared from his shoulders to his waist, lashing his skin into shreds, filleting his mind. One strike, then another. Gashes tearing his skin apart like paper, scraping against his bones and digging deep into flesh where there were no bones to protect it. 

There weren’t any thoughts, there was no escape. He was pain. Thick sticky blood flowed freely, coating everything, his wrists and his back, slicking the floor and filling his nose with the smell of iron. He even thought he was crying it.

The van crashed back to the ground, settling after a few aftershocks. The lashes tapered off to the point that Dean could manage a whimper, and people were instantly on him. He screamed when someone touched his back. Another lash landed.

Bobby was urgent. “Dean, tell me what’s broken. Dean!”

“He shouldn’t speak,” said another voice. “We need to get him outside. Ambulances are on the way.”

“B-Bobby,” Dean whispered. He couldn’t really process what he was seeing, he thought it might be Bobby’s knee, but someone gripped his hand as he breathed deeply the scent of rubber and gravel from the floor of the van, trying to move his back as little as possible.

“I’m right here,” Bobby responded.

“Hurts,” Dean said. He squeezed his eyes shut as hot tears overflowed completely against his control. It was like he’d been in a blender or like a bear had gone at his skin with the intention of making ground beef. He could only imagine what a pulpy mess it was. “Sam.”

“Sam’s safe, he’ll see you at the hospital.” Bobby assured. “Dammit, boy. You’re falling apart.”

_I am_ , Dean silently agreed. He was falling apart and his life was falling apart and everything was breaking into pieces. 

He slipped into unconsciousness gratefully.

 

* * *

 

A thin tube descended towards Dean’s eye. He struggled not to flinch when it released a puff of air. Eye exams were the worst. He’d spent the day getting stitched together and then he was scheduled for nearly every test under the sun. They could explain away his pureéd back as the car crash but the vision of Sam and the random loss of bodily control? Not that.

He’d been poked and prodded by everything everywhere, from his eyes to his asscheeks. Sam and Bobby were trading harsh whispers in the hallway outside his room, but Dean could still hear them. They were waiting for the doctor to return with the verdict. 

“He’s seeing things now, too. Do you think it could be related to John?” That was Sam.

Bobby was better at whispering, so Dean had to strain to hear. “John? What’s that lump got to do with this?”

“The magical thinking… Delusions, hallucinations. Asking for people he doesn’t know. Don’t schizophrenia disorders run in families? Has he been talking to John?”

“No more than usual. We’ll have to see what the doctors say. It’ll be alright, Sam.”

It was quiet for a minute and Dean imagined Bobby hugging Sam. His brother already had circles under his eyes. This whole situation was taking a toll on him like he was suffering right alongside Dean.

When they walked back into the room, they immediately looked to Dean like they were checking he hadn’t spontaneously combusted. Dean sank into the bed, trying to divert attention. “So what did the van hit anyway?” 

“It was a hit and run,” Bobby said. “Son of a bitch caused a head-on collision and somehow managed to zip away before anyone was coherent. Everyone was alright, though.” _Aside from you._ “A little shook up, but nothing a bit of prayer wouldn’t solve.”

“That’s good,” Sam said. “I can’t believe your bad luck.”

Right, that Dean had apparently had some sort of episode and was then immediately in a car crash involving a bunch of nuns. And he thought his childhood had been wild.

That moment in the van when he had asked for “Father Castiel,” it hadn’t really been Dean. It was his mouth, his voice, but he’d felt detached from it. He had no idea who Father Castiel was, the name was drawing a complete blank, he had no clue why he’d ask for someone he didn’t know. But he got the sense that wasn’t the last he’d hear about it. The sour twist in his gut told him whatever was happening to him was just getting started.

The doctor knocked the open door as a courtesy and let herself in. It was someone different from last time. She smiled at Dean and he hid a flinch. Her smile was soft like Sam’s, with something practiced about it. Another patient, another piteous person to care for. Someone who couldn’t solve their own problems.

Sam was frowning at Dean, he noticed the flinch. Dean flicked his gaze to the side.

The doctor rattled off his results, noting what was normal and what wasn’t. Pretty much everything was as it should be. As it turned out, he was in good health for someone with holes in his wrists and a back full of gashes. She solemnly flipped to the last sheet on her clipboard, which was presumably labeled the “Super Bad News” section.

“We’ll need to do more tests, but given your symptoms, we suspect epilepsy.”

Dean blinked and could almost feel when Sam squeezed the bedrail tighter. “Epilepsy?”

“The convulsions, the lapses, and the hallucinations could all indicate it. But as you are now, we can release you today. Expect a call back soon about further exams.”

She had the courtesy to wait for Dean’s numb nod before leaving. 

“Okay,” Sam was saying absently as he gathered papers and bags of personal items. “Epilepsy.”

Once they were in the hallway, making for Sam’s shitty Ford, he continued. “That’s not death, that’s just… A lifestyle change.”

“Right,” Dean automatically agreed. A lifestyle change. That was a positive way of saying that his life had been completely upended.

“You know, a lot of people can manage epilepsy with medication. In fact, I think most people can. And diet and stress management helps. That’s doable.”

Sam had an arm around Dean’s shoulders even though Dean didn’t really need the physical support. It was more of an emotional thing. His little brother had always been too astute when it came to the moods Dean tried to hide. So much for pushing his personal problems aside for Sam’s sake. 

Bobby followed behind, pensively silent. He could almost hear him reconsidering Dean’s place at the shop. If Dean couldn’t handle himself, could he handle an engine?

A lifestyle change… That sounded like Sam-speak for getting sober and leaving the club scene behind.

As if sensing his thoughts, Sam said, “We could probably start with the drinking and dancing.”

Dean raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “‘We?’”

“ _We_. I said I’d help you.”

“Keeping me from the club will not help me. If anything that would make this worse. That’s where I _go_ , it’s what I _do_. They know me there, I love that place.” It was the only place he found safety and release. It’s where he made all his pickups, it’s where he met Lisa, it’s where he could get buzzed without drinking alone. Human contact. Escape. He needed it. “You just hate that place. But I don’t. So what’s wrong with going?”

The arm around Dean briefly tightened, not as a threat but with concern. “There’s nothing wrong with going there. It’s just— you should go because it makes you happy. Not because you’re depressed or self-destructive or something.”

Dean couldn’t say he wasn’t either of those things so he fell back to his trusted mode of communication: mocking jokes. “Okay, Oprah. Got any more self-improvement tips before I change the channel?”

Dean had to admit that he wasn’t in the best place in life. The little Sam-voice in his head was probably just his conscience in a mask. It was easier to pretend everything was okay, and he didn’t think it was only for Sam’s sake anymore. Sam was hardly around these days. Now he was only trying to fool himself.

“You know, I know that being a healthy person is not really your thing, but you could try taking care of yourself once in awhile, Dean. I’m not a helpless kid anymore, I’m not your job or your only concern anymore. I never should have been anyway. And you’re not…” Sam hesitated to bring it up. “John’s not around anymore. You don’t have to keep pushing yourself until you break.”

“I’m not breaking,” Dean tried to insist, but like some sort of cosmic irony his voice cracked on the last word. His throat was dry from the sterile hospital air. He slumped further into Sam, suddenly feeling the weight of everything on his shoulders. “Sammy, I’m just trying to do the best for everyone.”

Sam made a frustrated noise. Bobby piped up, “It’s like you didn’t hear a damn word he just said.”

Tired, Dean just said, “Anything to add, Bobby?”

“Yeah, stop bein’ an idjit, stop trying to save the world. Save yourself.”

Dean watched the tiles go past. Sam’s words after his ordeal in the ER flashed across his mind.

“ _None of those things are as important as you_.”

Why did nobody get it? It wasn’t that he wasn’t important, or whatever sappy bullshit they were forcing down his throat. He just wasn’t the priority. There were things bigger than him, things that were worth his pain. Sacrifice was necessary to get them to this point, and he’d keep doing it forever if that’s what it took.

A weird little pulse of agreement echoed through his head, something both separate and a part of Dean encouraging the thought. He didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, it was the mission he had to focus on.

For a moment, wires crossed. Dean wasn’t sure exactly what his mission was. It was Sammy, he thought. Protect Sammy. That’s what it had always been about.

But Sam was alright now. He was stable and independent. He thought about John, the little ache of guilt at the back of his throat whenever they talked. But it wasn’t John either.

Something slick and black wheedled words into his head in a language he didn’t know. Layered whisperings snaked around his senses. Lead settled into his limbs again and Sam took more of his weight without complaint, probably assuming he was tired. It was all angles and shapes crowding him against his own skull. Dizzy with the swirling onslaught of information, Dean stumbled.

_I don’t understand_ , he thought, trying to process. 

It all coalesced. Only one thing mattered. This message. His mission.

He understood instantly.

In the lobby someone jumped out of a chair the moment they appeared and Dean wasn’t sure where his thoughts had been wandering. He caught a flash of a clerical collar. Father Samandriel. He shook cobwebs out of his head and lead out of his limbs. Whatever he had been thinking, it was gone now.

“Dean, hello, so happy to see you up and about.” Everything rushed out of his mouth like he needed to get it out as fast as possible. When Dean heard what he had to say, he understood why. “Have you ever heard of stigmata?”

“Stigmata?” Dean repeated. Something pinged at the back of his head, but he couldn’t grasp it. It was distant, like another part of Dean had recognized it, but not Dean himself. 

He was beginning to feel like there was something right in front of his face that he just couldn’t recognize. There was the most disconcerting feeling that he wasn’t alone, and he didn’t mean that Sam and Bobby were nearby.

Father Samandriel earnestly nodded. “I think it’s something you should consider, given—”

“Father,” Bobby stepped in and glared the younger man down. That was his “don’t fuck around with me” face. “Thank you for the ride and everything but we really need to be going now. Dean needs time to heal with his family.”

“Right, of course.” The Father didn’t seem to be cowed by Bobby’s expression in the slightest. Instead, he slipped a business card into the pocket of Dean’s jacket. “You can contact me if you ever need to discuss anything.”

Sam made to leave but Dean held fast. Something still bothered him. “You didn’t get a look at whoever crashed into you?” 

A ball of cold inevitability settled in his stomach when Father Samandriel’s face slipped from polite confusion to dread that he tried and failed to hide. He crossed himself.

“There wasn’t anyone there. I didn’t crash into anything.”

Dean was locked there, staring at the afterimage of the priest’s anxious gesture, when Sam practically hauled him away. “C’mon, Dean. You need to rest.”


	3. Thy kingdom come

Father Castiel Novak was a patient man. He had to be in his line of work. Paint drying, grass growing, he could outwait it all. Thankfully his usual duties included listening to rambling witnesses and deciphering readings from instruments, which tended to be slightly more interesting. But what tested his supreme self control today was his superior, Cardinal Zachariah Adler, who could care less about witnesses or readings.

“The tears were warm.” Castiel pointed to the part of his report that analyzed the mystery liquid. Except, according to his study, it wasn’t a mystery liquid at all. “The substance tested positive for iron and blood cells. It’s fresh blood.”

Just days ago, Castiel had visited the Brazilian city of Belo Quinto on a tip about a statue that cried blood. The community was mourning the recent loss of their priest, a Father Alamedia, and according to the church staff, their statue of the Virgin Mary began crying tears of blood when the Father died. Castiel was skeptical but open minded, which was how he approached every “miracle” reported to the Vatican. He was glad he gave it a chance.

Belo Quinto was poor and crowded. A _favela_. Its position in Southeast Brazil gave it a warm, dry _cerrado_ savanna climate despite its proximity to a large river. The sun was high and unrelenting, so he wove through the shadows of buildings when he could. Castiel, obviously foreign and some sort of church official, expected more eyes on him. It was hard to mistake what he was. But the city was nearly empty.

There was no need to find someone to ask for directions, however. Crowds of mourners dressed in white surrounded the relatively plain church that rose out of the haphazard architecture of the city. The parishioners were milling about like a herd of lost sheep, shuffling back and forth, pressing into the crowd to enter the church or speak to someone. Like the city, despite the size of the crowd, they were hushed and subdued. Castiel’s hand tightened on the strap across his chest. It was the shock of death that brought such a vibrant community to its knees. For their sake, he hoped this case turned out to have substance.

A low murmur followed him as Castiel slipped through the packed courtyard, standing out like a drop of ink on fresh paper with his starched black uniform and tan overcoat. Eyes full of curiosity, distrust, and heartache lined his vision. He pressed his bulging satchel against his stomach to make the journey quicker. 

It was standing room only in the church. Once people noticed his collar they managed to clear a path to the altar, where the body of their former priest laid in an open casket, still and pale and at peace. Flowers filled the empty spaces in the casket and his hands were folded like he should be holding something precious. Shaking hands with the deacon, Castiel asked a few cursory questions, but the reason he was there was obvious. 

A few feet away was the statue of the Virgin Mary. She was made of polished white marble, which gleamed in the low light of the church, a sign of the visible care she was shown. And from her eyes were the tears of blood, a thick red substance that flowed down her face, dripped off her chin onto her chest, and left red trails down the marble robes to coat her feet. It seemed as though her heart was bleeding along with her eyes.

“This began after Father Alamedia died, yes?” Castiel asked in Portuguese as he approached the statue. 

The young deacon confirmed, pushing circular lenses up his nose and hurrying after Castiel, who bent at the waist to knock on the platform elevating the statue. No reverberation. With a flathead screwdriver from the satchel, he checked the carvings in the platform for any seams that would indicate that it could be opened. But no, it was solid stone.

He scanned a few areas with a stud finder for internal wiring. The device didn’t indicate anything was inside.

“Has this statue been moved recently or in the past for any reason?”

The deacon shook his head. “Not since it was installed. It’s very heavy.”

Castiel glanced at the casket again, wondering what about the Father’s death could have triggered something like this. In his time as an investigator for the Vatican, he’d come across priests who faked miracles for fame and money, but Father Alamedia was unlikely to reap any of those rewards if he was dead. Scrutinizing the deacon out of the corner of his eye, Castiel thought it probably wasn’t this man either. He was wiping his brow and seemed harried, glancing between the casket, the mourners packed into the church, and Castiel like this was a little more than he was trained to handle. That wasn’t the face of someone who wanted attention.

Tugging his collar slightly away from his throat, Castiel walked around the statue, checking one last time for seams. His hands slid smoothly across the unmarred surface. Nothing. 

It was humid and hot and his multiple layers were not serving him well, but he was loath to take them off. As a representative of the Vatican, he had an image to maintain. The crowd watched him quietly, only breaking the near-silence to whisper prayers or shush children. It only felt hotter with all of their gazes on his back.

They gathered not just to mourn their priest, but also to venerate the supposed miracle. The Father had been a staple in the community and now that he was gone, there was a tangible sense of loss and sorrow in the air. But by the light in people’s tired, tear-puffed eyes, he could tell they hadn’t lost hope. God blessed them in their time of grief with a palpable sign of his presence.

“What more proof do you need?” the deacon asked. A ripple of agreement from the nearby mourners. They were impatient for Castiel to recognize their miracle.

Castiel retrieved a vial from an inner pocket and swabbed up some of the red substance. They wouldn’t like the next step.

“I suggest you clear the church,” Castiel said lowly to the deacon, pocketing the vial. “I will need to remove the statue to the Vatican for more tests.”

“Remove it?” the deacon whispered, tone just shy of panic.

And this was the part Cardinal Zachariah cut into.

“You left the statue there?”

“I did,” Castiel confirmed levelly. “You should have seen it, it has become like a cornerstone of their faith.”

Zachariah tossed Castiel’s report back on his desk with a put upon sigh. “The cornerstone of their faith should be the Church, Father.”

“Yes, well I am simply saying that for a community in mourning—”

“It doesn’t matter what state the community is in, we can’t allow false miracles to spread.”

Castiel closed his eyes to remind himself that patience was a virtue and tapped his report again. “Like I said in my report, it was real blood out of a block of solid marble, so whether the miracle is fabricated is not concluded yet.” He held up the tape from his recorder. “Maybe if you listened to an interview.”

“You and your tape recorder, you have that thing everywhere.” Zachariah rubbed the bridge of his nose like the presence of the tape gave him a headache. “What were you even doing looking at statues in Belo Quinto? I thought I sent you to São Paulo to investigate an image of Mary appearing on a wall.”

“It was an unfortunate trick of rain and lichen,” Castiel dismissed, tucking the tape away. He had a smaller report prepared on that one. “I caught wind of the statue and took initiative.”

“You can’t go places in an official capacity without my approval. You know that.”

“Well, I will be there in an official capacity this time.”

“This time?”

“I need to go back to study further. I’ll have to have some equipment shipped, so I should go prepare…”

“Castiel,” Zachariah dropped all pretense of courtesy and rearranged the papers on his desk, stapling them together with a final click. “The statue in Belo Quinto is no longer your case, just as it never was. I will have someone investigate the church in that city and send them to retrieve the statue and you will wait for further instruction.”

Castiel opened his mouth to protest but the Cardinal kept talking, leveling a glare in his direction. 

“You would do well to remember your duty to the Church above all.” And he waved a hand to dismiss him.

 

* * *

 

The Vatican library was massive and dusty and usually devoid of people. High vaulted ceilings made every footstep echo against the stone floor. Castiel swiped his keycard and signed in with the guard at the door. Security was tight because the archives contained ancient, sensitive texts. First editions, primary documents, original Bibles. Ideas that might cause dissent if they ever got out and completely tame canonical materials that were in line with current Catholic dogma. Many of the materials had been on their shelves for hundreds of years and most of them hadn’t seen the light of day in just as long.

Particularly controversial ideas were locked in a wrought iron cage bolted to the stone floor in the farthest corner of the main room. The faded spines and protective cases teased the imagination. What could a book have possibly done to offend the Church enough to imprison it? Only a handful of people knew.

Castiel was looking for one of them.

Long wooden desks were pressed against the thick bars as a further deterrent. Bulky computer terminals sat on the desks, collecting dust on the screens and drawing patrons’ views away from the special collections with something more modern and interactive. Brother Gabriel sat at a computer terminal, glancing between the screen and a square yellowed text laid out on the table nearby. When he noticed Castiel’s approach, he quickly closed the book and turned off the computer. Although the actions were shifty, his smile was genuine, and it only became more so when Castiel slipped a bar of Brazilian chocolate onto his table.

“Straight from the cocoa trees,” Castiel said with a rare smile. He politely ignored Gabriel trying to hide the book.

Gabriel clapped in excitement, already unwrapping the sweet. “Cassie, you really know how to get a girl all gooey and excited.”

“Gabriel.”

“It’s only a joke, Father Obvious. Not a mortal sin. We’re not Protestants, remember? We’ve got a little leeway there. Oh! The chocolate has coffee in it!”

Castiel’s breath whooshed out his nose in fond exasperation. Gabriel held a special place in Castiel’s heart, and vice versa. They had struck it off immediately when Castiel’s work with miracles brought him increasingly to the library. Gabriel was a linguist serving on the Gospel Commission, a team that interpreted highly classified ancient texts for general study and papal consideration if they passed muster. His job was bringing God’s word to the people. He was only given every third page, so he couldn’t say what it was he was translating at any given time, and Castiel knew that the lack of information ate at him, but he was good at what he did and loved doing it too.

That was maybe more than Castiel could say for himself.

“So how are things, Castiel?” Gabriel leaned back in his chair, taking advantage of the break. He blinked a few too many times like his eyes were dry.

“Things are… as they are,” Castiel said. Then he drooped against the table, the tension from his meeting with the Cardinal leaving him all at once. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Gabriel.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow, chewing a piece of chocolate. “Oh? Spill.”

“I go around disproving miracles… The real miracle is that anyone has faith at all.”

“So you didn’t find Mother Mary on a wall in São Paulo?”

Castiel rubbed the bridge of his nose and repeated what he’d told Zachariah. Just weather and hopeful believers. 

“But I heard you found something else in Brazil.”

“Yes.” Castiel frowned at Gabriel’s innocent expression. “How did you know that? I just told the Cardinal.”

“I have my ways,” Gabriel deflected. “Now, tell me.”

“It was a statue of Mary that cried blood. I couldn’t find a trick and the priest had just died, so I don’t suspect corruption. In fact, the deacon said that the blood corresponded with his death.” Castiel stared pensively at the tabletop, watching Gabriel’s fingers break the chocolate apart out of the corner of his eye. 

In his time as an investigator of miracles for the department of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, he’d never found a real miracle. Every single one had turned out to be engineered by man or coincidence. When human greed was the cause, it was an affront to the divine, who did bestow miracles on the worthy, like Mother Teresa and Saint Francis. Miracles were rare, by definition impossible. Our Lady of Akita, a wooden statue of Mary that cried tears of blood in the 70s, was the closest he could imagine to his current investigation. 

Except it wasn’t his investigation anymore. The Cardinal handed it off to someone else, someone who wouldn’t have any compassion for the community of Belo Quinto, someone who would faithfully follow commands.

It rubbed him the wrong way, the thought that his pursuit of the truth was misinterpreted as a lack of faith. Blind obedience and faith in God were not synonymous. He wondered sometimes if the Cardinal knew that. It was about rules and hierarchy for him. Pity the deacon who messed up his coffee order.

Gabriel broke into his thoughts. “I’m guessing you found this case pretty convincing.”

“The evidence was compelling,” Castiel confirmed. “Usually I can reveal a fake on site, but this was a solid block of marble leaking warm blood. It warrants another look.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Get on a plane! Take another look.”

Castiel shook his head. “The Cardinal gave the case to someone else because I wouldn’t remove the statue from the community.”

Gabriel sighed dramatically and clutched his heart, a knowing smile on his face. “Your devotion to the little guys is showing.”

“Someone has to have compassion,” Castiel grumbled. Gabriel threw chunks of chocolate at Castiel’s face, who only just managed to catch them, scowling with exasperation, but unsurprised by Gabriel’s childish attempt to cheer him. 

“Brother—Gabriel! Stop.” 

One last chunk bounced off his forehead and Gabriel smiled without shame. Considering the chocolate for a moment, Castiel popped it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. It was very good. He’d chosen well. 

“The Cardinal stays locked up in the Palace and doesn’t consider the laity as more than a mindless flock of sheep. If he were on the ground, if he were at that church… He would understand.”

Gabriel was still smiling but it was tinged with caution. “I know you’re fresh from a disagreement with the Cardinal but remember: God lives here. We all know everything that’s said.”

Castiel nodded. Of course. There was perhaps no group more gossipy than those serving the Vatican. Very little of what was spoken aloud remained private. Plus, while he may be frustrated now, the Cardinal was acting in the Church’s best interests. 

To put it diplomatically, Castiel and Cardinal Zachariah were not always on the best terms. Zachariah was a bureaucratic, ostentatious pencil-pusher whose only real-world experience had been his short career with a local church before his promotion. Before he found his calling with the Church, he’d been a businessman, so the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints was about deadlines and results and _staying in line_ , something Castiel could never seem to do, according to Zachariah.

To Zachariah, Castiel was an uncertain, tenuously-faithful priest who couldn’t decide if he believed in God or science, despite Castiel’s staunch insistence that those two things were not in conflict. He took the stance that Castiel was something to be reigned in and controlled, like he was some sort of loose canon liable to go off at any time. 

After a particularly grueling case that involved disproving a faith healer’s assertion that he’d cured a child’s cancer, where Castiel probably lived up to his reputation, Zachariah had said that his problem was that he had too much heart.

_Too much?_ Castiel had thought. It wasn’t possible to have too much heart, only too little. 

Footsteps neared. Gabriel stiffened when he looked behind Castiel. Castiel twisted to see who it was.

Uriel placed a hand on Castiel’s shoulder as he passed. It was too light to be a shove, but he got the impression that it was meant to push him out of the conversation. The only acknowledgement he got was a flash of a grin, cold and condescending. Then Uriel was looking down at Gabriel.

With a flourish, Uriel produced a white envelope. He dropped it on the computer desk casually. Gabriel leaned over his book like a bear protecting her cubs, face scrunched and distrustful. The air was tense. Castiel shuffled uncomfortably behind Uriel. Gabriel didn’t exactly get along with Uriel, from what Castiel remembered, but he’d never seen them look like they might get into a physical altercation. And that’s what it really felt like right now.

Without deigning either of them with words, Uriel turned on his heel and walked back out of the library. 

Gabriel tore the envelope open and skimmed the card inside. Rubbing his temples, he suddenly looked exhausted. Castiel approached and tilted his head to read the card in Gabriel’s hand. It was a funeral invitation for Father Raziel, one of Gabriel’s colleagues from the Gospel Commission.

“Oh,” Castiel breathed. He had forgotten about the murder.

It was a shock that had rocked the Vatican. Father Raziel was found in his apartment in the middle of Vatican City with his throat cut. Crime was low here, murder was unheard of, especially the murder of someone from the Vatican.

Castiel said, “I’m sorry, I know you two worked closely.”

Gabriel nodded, looking at the invite on the desk and not at Castiel’s concerned expression. “Father Raziel was a good man. A brave man. One of the best.” He traced the fibers of the book cover, face rigid. Sorrow Castiel expected, but Gabriel didn’t look sad, or like he missed the murdered Father. Gabriel looked murderous.

Castiel said, “I hope they catch the person responsible.”

“Right. Yes. I hope they catch the slimy bastard and show him what it’s like.”

Castiel peered at Gabriel. How did he know he’s a slimy bastard? “Do they have any leads?”

Gabriel seemed to shake himself out of the mood and flashed a weak grin. “I don’t know, just a guess. This is only something a slimy bastard could do.”

Castiel changed tact, realizing that the death of one of Gabriel’s close colleagues was not the happiest topic for Gabriel. They were supposed to be socializing right now.

“What are you translating today?” 

Gabriel patted the flaking red cover of the tome, face slipping back into neutral. “You know I can’t tell you, Cassie. State secrets and all.”

And just like that, all of Castiel’s frustration with the Cardinal was back. He turned to the collections behind the computer desk and gripped the bars separating the rest of the Vatican from knowledge of God in times gone by.

“Nothing ever gets out of here, does it?” he said to himself. “Unless _they_ want it to.”

 

* * *

 

Once paged, Castiel reappeared in Cardinal Zachariah’s office. The plush carpet and heavy velvet curtains draped over the wall of polished windows sucked up the sound of his footsteps. Castiel couldn’t help but think of the _favela_ , where people lived on top of one another and found their savior in a modest church, while Zachariah sat behind his massive mahogany desk signing paperwork with a gold fountain pen.

“Have a seat,” he said without looking up. With his head bent, he looked like a red skullcap perched atop a black uniform.

Castiel settled uneasily on the edge of a gilded chair facing the desk. Gabriel’s comment about the Vatican knowing everything niggled at the back of his mind, so he imagined plenty of disciplinary reasons he’d been summoned.

Zachariah finished his current packet of papers and returned the pen to its stand. From a ream to his right side he pulled out another thick stack and pushed it toward Castiel. Castiel scanned the first few pages. It was an incident report from the Archdiocese of New York set in heavy serif on cheap paper that held the impressions of the typewriter’s slugs. Compulsively, he smoothed out a folded corner.

“You’ll find seven eyewitness reports from a crash involving a few Sisters and a priest.”

Castiel nodded along. He could see that. “What puts this under my purview?”

He handed the packet back when the Cardinal gestured and leaned forward to read the section he pointed out. Almost against his will, Castiel’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair.

“Their van crashed into nothing,” the Cardinal highlighted. “And a layperson they had picked up was whipped by something invisible. The priest, Father Samandriel, is particularly adamant that he watched marks _miraculously_ open up on his skin right before his eyes. He compared it to scourging. Like the stigmata.”

Castiel didn’t miss the emphasis on _miraculous_. He pulled himself together with an internal sigh. Another day, another case. He wasn’t getting Belo Quinto back, so he might as well accept this with grace.

He flipped to the page with the information on the subject. Dean Winchester. 27 years old. 6’ 1”. Mechanic at Singer Auto in New York City.

Fastened to the file with a silver paperclip was a wallet-sized photo of a handsome young man whose bright green eyes made Castiel’s heart do a strange jump.

“I expect regular check-ins.”

“Right,” Castiel mumbled, studying the face. 

The photo was probably from the DMV or some other organization. Dean Winchester was not smiling in it. Castiel wasn’t either, but the way his heart jumped, it was like he did.

Castiel folded the paper over the photo, leaving little marks where his fingers had begun to sweat, and slipped the file into the darkness of his coat. Away from his gaze, somewhere close to the rest he had locked up.

He had miracles to investigate.

 

* * *

 

Castiel steered his vehicle cautiously through two lanes of honking traffic, which were far too few lanes for the amount of vehicles on the road. He felt like every car that moved was a charging bull and his steering wheel was the red cape held in a death grip. New York was too crowded, he decided. And he had once thought the tourists that packed St. Peter’s Square were too dense. It wasn’t his first time in the Big Apple, but usually he had courtesy transportation. Most of his cases brought him to remote locations. He wasn’t accustomed to driving in such a dense city center. 

Today he was welcomed by a nervous but enthused Father Samandriel, whose excitable attitude could probably be attributed to the fact that he was younger than expected. The Father seemed genuine in his concern for the case, but after introductions were exchanged, he gave Cas what he could only describe as a series of incredulous looks, like Castiel had claimed to be the Pope or something equally ridiculous and unbelievable. 

The young Father’s church was a squat historic building carved out of rain-stained gray stone. Castiel supposed for the neighborhood it was probably amazingly ornate architecture, but the modest curves and ribs paled in comparison to his gleaming home in Vatican City. Garbage collected at the base of the walls outside. The buildings across the street were dilapidated apartment blocks and old industrial homes, some abandoned and graffitied and some clearly occupied when they shouldn’t be. 

Maybe because of the decay and not in spite of it, the little church was woven directly into the fabric of the community. There was a wall papered with children’s crayon drawings when Castiel walked in the back door. They depicted stick figure families, sunny days in the park, and there was one that appeared to be of a superhero.

_If I could be anything_ , the caption said, _I’d be a superhero to protect my friends_. 

A big box of what appeared to be rumpled clothes sat just inside the back door with a handwritten sign that told people to help themselves. Next to that was a crooked bookshelf full of children’s books and teen novels in equal stages of newness and falling apart from use.

And that was just the back entrance. 

They stepped into a small kitchen area, which was dark, except for a closet to Castiel’s immediate left, which was brightly illuminated to show shelves upon shelves of bandages, suturing kits, antiseptics, and other medical supplies. It was practically a small infirmary. 

Castiel furrowed his brow and called, “Father?”

When Samandriel realized where Castiel was looking, he scrambled to turn off the light and close the closet door.

“Ah, that’s nothing, you know, kids get paper cuts during Sunday school, bandaids, right?”

“Those must be some big papercuts…” 

But Samandriel bulldozed on, shepherding Castiel out of the kitchen and into the sanctuary. “There are more important things at hand, here, Father!”

The sanctuary was the largest room in the church. There were rows of neat wooden pews extending into the darkness at the back. Sconces that no doubt no longer saw any real use dripped from the high vaulted ceiling. There was a large icon at the altar and a cluster of fresh flowers on the floor, presumably ready to be placed for the next service. Castiel didn’t pay much of it mind, because Samandriel was still hurrying away from the kitchen.

Father Samandriel continued to sneak incredulous glances at Castiel as they passed through the rest of the church. A little annoyed, but mostly curious, Castiel finally heaved a sigh and asked, “Do you have something to say, Father Samandriel?”

“No, sir,” the young priest was quick to assure. “Sorry.” But he didn’t elaborate on what the apology was for.

The Father showed Castiel to a garage, where he passed along the keys to a gold 70s Lincoln Continental.

“Sorry, she’s all we’ve got…” Father Samandriel began to apologize again. Castiel waved him off.

“I like it.”

Presently, Castiel pulled up beside Singer Auto. Compared to the soaring buildings nearby, it was a squat two-story complex, with what looked like a residence above and the garage below. The zoning must have been a handful. One of the garage doors was open, revealing a bustling interior packed with mechanics and cars and tools that gleamed in a dull fluorescent light. The cement was cracked and the building worn, but that gave it a homey air. Castiel thought he could almost see the care the place radiated. If he actually had to get his car fixed, he would have trusted a place like this. Ugly, but honest.

A man appeared in the open garage door and beckoned. Castiel had been noticed. Right away Castiel recognized him as his subject, Dean Winchester, and he sent a silent thanks above.

Castiel pulled into the garage and rolled down his window. Dean settled on the window frame with a winning smile on his face and launched into the company welcome, although he faltered when his eyes flickered down to the collar at Castiel’s throat. He recovered quickly enough that if Castiel hadn’t been looking for anything out of the ordinary, he wouldn’t have noticed.

Dean cleared his throat to cover the slip. “What do you need today?” 

Here Castiel attempted to hide a grimace. He didn’t know if anything was actually wrong with Father Samandriel’s car, so he figured honesty was the way to go. Or, as close to honesty as he could get without revealing himself right away.

“I can’t pretend I know anything about cars,” Castiel said. “But I agreed to bring this one in for the local parish to get a tune up. Can’t have it giving out on them.”

Dean smirked. “The local parish has a pimpmobile, Father?”

Castiel furrowed his brow and considered. He wasn’t sure what type of car it was exactly but he was pretty sure no one had mentioned a “pimpmobile.” “I assumed this was a Continental but—”

“It’s just a joke, man.” Dean waved the whole conversation away with ease. “So you just want a general check-up to make sure nothing’s going to explode any time soon?”

“Yes. No explosions, please.”

“Done and done. Usually you’d need an appointment but lucky for you Bobby’s not around and I’m all free up today.” 

Castiel wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to ask about who Bobby was. A clipboard slipped through the window. Castiel clicked the pen, decided Bobby didn’t matter, and began doing the paperwork, watching Dean out of the corner of his eye. He moved carefully, rolling his shoulders every once in awhile like they were irritating him. Castiel could imagine the lash marks hidden by his long-sleeved shirt. When he reached to grab something, the sleeves dragged up and made the thick white bandages around his wrists very clear.

Castiel returned his attention to the paperwork and resolutely crossed his _T_ s and dotted his _I_ s. That was visual confirmation of what Father Samandriel had reported. Looked like this was a legitimate case. 

Dean collected the paperwork as Castiel considered how he should approach telling him the real reason he was here. But he never had to figure that out. Dean sucked in a shocked breath when he read the paperwork and Castiel was met with the full force of his gaze. 

Just like when Castiel had first seen his picture, his heart did a little somersault. He gripped the steering wheel tighter to ride it out, a little alarmed by the reaction.

Dean’s eyes were wide, scanning Castiel’s face for explanation. Before, Cas had been just another customer. Now, he had Dean’s full attention.

“Father Castiel Novak?” he questioned. It was cautious, but in a way that told Castiel he was either going to be salvation or a threat.

With a growing sense of foreboding, Castiel confirmed. Dean slowly put the clipboard aside, watching Castiel like he might disappear if he didn’t keep him pinned with his eyes.

“This might sound kinda weird, but I’ve been waiting for you.”


	4. Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven

Dean guided the priest to a diner he and Sam frequented when Sam got tired of the club. It was small and homey, with big windows looking out into the rainy street. Chrome ran across the sides of everything and the worn laminate tile cushioned his steps. The lights were yellow like an old family photo. It felt good to be somewhere familiar with someone new. Like maybe he had the upper hand in this whole thing.

The Father didn’t seem happy to be here, but neither was he antagonistic. This seemed routine. He was stiff and formal. Like a block of stone. Yet his grip was carefully gentle when they shook hands. Dean found himself looking for all the other gentle parts of this stony priest. He found it in his eyes, which were ridiculously blue, and in the curve of his lips, where Dean could read that Father Castiel was perturbed about something.

Dean smiled a little at the expression and fought down thoughts about lips. Do not get attracted to a priest. That was all sorts of damnable. “What?” 

The Father peered around the diner interior, eyes tracking waitresses in frilled aprons and pastel uniforms. “I don’t believe I have ever been to a restaurant like this.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “A diner? You’ve never been to a diner? Were you raised under a rock?”

“New Jersey, actually,” was the distracted reply. 

“Same thing, I guess.”

Father Castiel focused back on Dean when a waitress approached to take their order. His eyes flicked down to Dean’s wrists when he placed them on the table where the bandages were made obvious. Dean shouldered off the discomfort from the scrutiny and ordered two coffees, considered pie, then nixed it. Wasn’t feeling particularly like eating. He was holding out a small hope that the coffee would soothe his thirst. A very small hope.

“My parents weren’t the diner type. Or the… going out type.” The Father said, folding his hands on the table in a mirror of Dean. “They stressed that it was most virtuous to cook for oneself. Of course my parents aren’t responsible for my well being anymore, but my work brings me to parishes across the world who usually host me personally, and I’m too busy for local destinations like diners, I suppose.”

“Well let this be your introduction.” Dean accepted a steaming carafe of coffee from the waitress, giving her a cheeky wink. She smiled and lightly whacked his shoulder with her notepad. He was pleased to see that even after his time with Lisa, his antics were still well known in this establishment. His smile faltered at the thought that he was free to flirt again, and maybe always was, if he was just “fun” for her. 

The first sip of coffee was bitter on his tongue. It didn’t do anything for his thirst.

“So, do you tell everyone about your parents on the first date?” Dean teased with no heart.

In an amazingly birdlike gesture, Father Castiel tilted his head to the side, like that would bring Dean further into focus. Before he even spoke, Dean knew he’d confused him. Again. 

“Does this appear to be a date? My apologies if that is so. That wasn’t my intention.”

Dean took a bracing gulp of hot coffee. This guy was about as socially competent as a hermit. “Joke, dude.”

“Ah,” the Father said, nodding sagely. He clasped his hands around his own mug but didn’t move to drink any. “Of course. And no, I don’t tell everyone about my parents, but I’m told that being open about one's personal life can help establish rapport.”

Rapport, right. Dean took a look out the window at the rain slick street outside. Cars and people hurried past, nondescript and just going about their lives. What did they worry about? Probably taxes and coworkers that ate their yogurt. Mundane stuff like that. They didn’t have a dad that chased ghosts, a younger brother who thought it was his life’s mission to turn Dean into a hippie, and spontaneous wounds. He turned back to the Father. Might as well get to the point.

“I asked for you by name,” he said. “I don’t know why or how. It’s a little creepy. Who are you?”

“I’m a representative of the Vatican, the Catholic seat of power. I’m just a priest,” Father Castiel said modestly. “Father Samandriel’s report mentioned your condition and it caught my department’s eye, so they sent me to investigate.”

Father Samandriel, whose van Dean had bloodied and possibly crashed. Almost as if reminding him of the event, the stitched lash marks on his back twinged.

“What’s your department?”

“The Congregation of the Causes of the Saints. We investigate miracles and recommend people for the Holy See to canonize.”

“Miracles,” Dean said flatly. He pointed to a bandaged wrist. “You think this is a miracle?”

“It could be. It has all the signs of the stigmata,” Father Castiel said thoughtfully. He pulled out a notepad and a cheap plastic pen, then dug a tape recorder out of an inner pocket, finger hovering over the red REC button. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

Dean made a dismissive gesture and the Father clicked the button to start the tape. A little red bulb lit up to indicate it was recording.

“My job is to investigate and figure out what is going on, so if we talk about it, I might be able to help,” Father Castiel said, uncapping his pen. He didn’t look up and Dean got the impression that this was a tedious routine with which he was intimately familiar. “Please state your name.”

Dean cleared his throat. “Dean Winchester.”

“And to which parish do you belong?”

“Excuse me?”

Here Father Castiel finally looked up, sensing the tension. “Which church do you go to?”

“Uh,” Dean hesitated for a second. He felt like this was the wrong answer. “I don’t go to church.”

Father Castiel slowly set down his pen. “You don’t go to church.”

“Never have and never will.”

The Father was looking a little wide-eyed. As wide-eyed as a block of stone could be. “You’re an atheist.”

Dean bristled. “So, what about it?”

Father Castiel clicked the button to stop the tape and pocketed the recorder, brow furrowed. “For an atheist, you are remarkably receptive.”

Dean watched the tape recorder disappear. “Why did you stop recording?”

“Because the interview is over.” Father Castiel pursed his lips like he was trying to think of a way to break the news gently. But not too gently. “Atheists can’t be stigmatic. Stigmata is a Catholic condition. If you’re not Catholic, something else is happening to you.”

Dean leaned back in the booth, crossing his arms in a way that was only a little petulant. “Like what, exactly? The doctors said epilepsy.”

“I’m not that kind of doctor, so I couldn’t say,” Father Castiel said diplomatically. He chugged down the rest of his coffee, preparing to leave.

Yeah, Dean didn’t believe in God or the supernatural. Yeah, taking a priest to coffee to talk about the holes in his wrists was beyond weird. But for some reason, somehow, he’d asked for this guy. Father Castiel was connected to this somehow. Dean couldn’t just let him leave.

And wasn’t it getting clunky to refer to him as that.

“Father Castiel—Cas, can I call you Cas?” No objection, just a raised eyebrow. “Here, just hold up. Take a look.” Dean offered his wrists, pulling the sleeves up his arms to give Castiel a clear view of the bandages. It made him feel weirdly vulnerable. “Under the bandages.”

Castiel watched Dean for a few moments, eyes flickering across his face. He must have found what he was looking for, because he reached out and lifted the bandages on both wrists, looking at the jaggedly-stitched still-bleeding wounds. When he finished, Dean flipped his wrists over and tried not to feel smug about Castiel’s raised eyebrow. Castiel lifted the bandages on the back of his wrists too, where he could see the wounds went all the way through.

The Father sat back looking thoughtful and a little disturbed. “I’ll admit the physical evidence is compelling.”

Dean scoffed. “Compelling is one word for it.”

“But, Dean, I still can’t help you.”

Suddenly his patience, his willingness to turn to a priest of all people, was gone. He was perpetually bleeding from spontaneously appearing wounds in his wrists. The first explanation was suicide, the second was epilepsy, and now it was God. He just wanted it to stop. He wanted the dark circles under Sam’s eyes to go away, he wanted Bobby to give him back the tough jobs, he wanted Benny to roughhouse him without looking guilty. And honestly, no more bleeding and no threat of random wounds hanging over his head sounded real nice. 

“Then why am I wasting my time with you?”

Dean wrestled himself out of the booth and kicked it for good measure. Why had he allowed himself to hope for even a second? 

Castiel weathered the outburst with a placid face. He could have been sitting in a park on a sunny day. It made Dean’s blood boil.

“Goodbye,” he ground out. The bell above the diner door jingled merrily when he left.

As he stomped through the streets towards the subway station, Dean thought about Sam at his apartment, books laid out around him as he valiantly researched everything he could on epilepsy. How supportive and understanding he was being. It made his gut churn with disgust, but not at Sam. Dean was being weak, so weak, so stupid, that he would think that even a priest might help him. He pulled Sam out of school and work with this bullshit, Bobby was trying to cope with both of them falling apart. And Lisa? She was long gone.

He went straight to the club with some screwball thought that maybe he could drink and dance his problems away. Maybe he could find someone and black out and not have to think again until morning. The bouncer’s welcoming grin faltered when he saw the expression on Dean’s face and he stopped him with a hand on his upper arm. Dean shook it off and continued into the dark, pulsing space.

The strobe light was usually blinding, but also thrilling. Now all he felt was a dull ache behind his eyes whenever it flickered across his face. It was hard to see, but it was always hard to see in here. Right?

He stumbled up to the bar and grabbed his head as the ache built. What was he doing here by himself? No Benny, no Lisa, no Sam. He was going to die alone drunk and exposed.

There was no memory of hitting the floor but he was on it. His skin adhered to the cement sticky with drinks past. The music had stopped. Or maybe it hadn’t and he just couldn’t hear it over the ringing in his ears. He gasped for breath, digging his fingernails into his head like that could stem the tide of pain. There were little knives in his skin. Needles long enough to hit bone. He felt them scraping a ring around his skull like some sort of sick halo. 

He might have yelled or sobbed. Something came out of his throat. He felt it even if he couldn’t hear it. His hands were wet and warm and in the dark it looked like deep black ink but each flash of the strobe threw the color on his hands into stark relief.

Red. 

Red.

_ Red _ .

Hands tried to haul him up or hold him down and he threw them all off, struggling off the sticky floor, lurching to his feet. Door. He had to get out the door. He had to get out of here.

At some point his sprint became a run, and the run went places he didn’t know. He tried going home first, got to the street in front of his apartment building panting and hunched and dripping blood, probably looking like a zombie out of a monster film. But there was someone at the door. Someone in a tan overcoat who turned and gaped liked a fish.

How did Castiel know where Dean lived?

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Castiel called his name but Dean was already off in another direction.

Only one thing mattered.

 

* * *

 

Castiel assured the waitress that he was fine, his partner’s outburst wasn’t anything to worry about, and paid for the coffee, tipping well. He was troubled by Dean’s condition. If he wasn’t Catholic, wasn’t Christian, wasn’t even remotely religious, Castiel couldn’t puzzle out what could be happening. All of the symptoms lined up, except that Dean didn’t believe in God.

There was always that chance that the wounds were self inflicted, but Father Samandriel had been firm when he stated that the lash-marks on Dean’s back had opened as he watched, and Castiel trusted the young priest. Dean had demonstrated that the wounds in his wrists not only went all the way through, but didn’t close. The stitches held the skin together but blood welled up as he watched and there was no sign of it stopping.

That was a crucial condition of the stigmata. Modern medicine couldn’t cure it. Sure it could suture it and bandage it and study it but it couldn’t make it stop. Dean had seemed desperate for something to make it stop, to the point that he almost trusted in God.

There were no atheists in foxholes. 

He pulled the sheaf of information out of his inner coat pocket. He’d only brought the most important parts into the diner. Dean’s personal information, a few sections from Father Samandriel’s and the nun’s reports that specifically detailed the lashes, and a page of his preliminary thoughts, including questions to ask. He never did get a chance to ask them.

The photo of Dean gazed back. Castiel found himself stopped on the sidewalk, meeting the glossy gaze. The photo hadn’t captured Dean’s fiery attitude and incomprehensible humor. However, it did remind him that Dean’s strong jawline and crystalline green eyes had arrested his attention the moment he’d seen him. Together, they made up a whole, beautiful person. 

Dean reminded Castiel of the murals of classically stunning men that decorated Rome outside Vatican City. It was simple: he was attractive. If Castiel thought about it too much, it made him feel a little light headed. He couldn’t imagine someone like that was single.

He’d never regretted joining but he found himself wishful now.

The things he might say if his life were different… 

Someone brushed past him on the busy sidewalk and Castiel remembered to keep moving.

Technically, if Dean wasn’t Catholic, then Castiel was neither obligated nor allowed to help him. Atheists were not the domain of the Church, which was for the professed faithful only, and the Vatican only expended resources on those faithful. He would have to get special permission from Cardinal Zachariah. Castiel didn’t even have to file for that permission to know it would be denied, much like his investigation into the church in Belo Quinto had been denied.

If he returned now, another miracle disproved by default because it would go uninvestigated, Zachariah would find him some other unlikely case. Mary on the side of a tortilla, this time. And he would have to go and prove to the world that God was once again not speaking to them.

Even if he didn’t believe in God, Dean seemed genuine, perhaps troubled, but definitely just someone who wanted what everyone else did. Answers. Solutions. People came to the Church for the same reasons. Refusing him help would be hypocritical and cruel.

According to Zachariah, Castiel had never been one for following rules to the letter. He could be disciplined for going ahead with the investigation without Zachariah’s approval, but that was a small price to pay if it gave Dean his life back.

And, truthfully, he wanted to get to know Dean a little better. It was a selfish, foolish urge, but he was in no hurry to return to the sanitized, regimented domain of his Cardinal. Dean’s reactions were so unashamed and raw, it felt like humanity. Maybe if he made his apologies and offered to help, there could be another, more successful not-date.

He felt his face heat with a thick blush.

Castiel flipped resolutely to the page of Dean’s information. His last known address had him only blocks from here. He could get there in a snap.

A snap turned out to be a bit longer than anticipated, with New York’s traffic in the way. It was fully dark by the time he was at the apartment building’s front door. It was a massive tower with double digit floors. Castiel pushed the buzzer for Dean’s apartment a few times and waited.

No reply.

As he was about to call it and try again tomorrow, a commotion drew his attention to the street. A figure appeared out of the gloom, bent and staggering, breathing hard. Castiel had a moment to wonder if this person needed help when they raised their head and he realized it was none other than Dean Winchester. His face was covered in blood, which flowed freely from short jagged slices in his forehead. The whites of his eyes were stark against the dark flowing down his face.

The crown of thorns.

“Dean—” he tried. Dean really did need help. Spiritual help and very possibly medical help. But the man bolted back into the night. 

Before he had a chance to think about it, Castiel was chasing after. He’d already made up his mind about this case. Miracles weren’t going to slip through his fingers forever because some pencil pusher bureaucrat thought anyone who wasn’t clergy was witless. 

Dean was fast, disappearing around corners and pulling ahead on the sidewalk so that he was just flashes in car headlights. Faster than he should be, given his state. Thankfully, Castiel’s desperation pushed him just as fast. He wasn’t an athlete—most of his time was spent in a lab reading test results. Not exactly Olympic material. But he could sprint if he had to.

Castiel passed a brightly-lit bodega and a dark print shop and followed Dean into a dead-end alley shored up with fire escapes from the surrounding apartment buildings. Turning to squint into the dark corners of the alley, Castiel called again.

“Dean?” he tried to say as calmly as possible. Dean was probably panicked and scared right now. The wounds must be incredibly disorienting. He had to draw him out slow and soothingly. 

The alley was wide and dark. Some light filtered down from the apartments above street-level, but not enough to see everything. It bathed Castiel in an eerie white glow like an artificial moon. A couple of rusty cars were parked near the end and the walls were lined with garbage cans and loose trash. The place reeked of rain and abandonment.

Anything could be behind those cars and cans. Bleeding Dean, stray cats, or something else. The sounds of traffic faded. It had grown cold with a slight breeze in the alley, raising goosebumps on Castiel’s neck, chilling the sweat gathering on his palms. Something was watching him, something was planning to make a move.

Something shifted behind him and Castiel whirled to face it, but it was only an upended trashcan of paper. Must be from the print shop. The white sheets fluttered in the breeze, making little rustling sounds. Castiel released the surge of adrenalin with a puff of breath.

A piercing scream made Castiel whirl back into the alley, one hand over his chest where his heart nearly burst through his ribcage. He winced when the high, keening sound continued, realizing that it wasn’t a human voice, but the sound of something tearing through metal. It was the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. 

Now he could see Dean, who was crouched on the hood of one of the cars, his back to Castiel, who approached carefully.

“Dean?”

Dean’s arm moved in time with the keening, so it was him making that sound. He muttered something guttural under his breath, something that didn’t become clearer the closer Castiel got. Tense and poised for struggle, Castiel pulled the tape recorder out of his pocket and hit the REC button. What Dean was saying was either nonsense or a language that Castiel had never heard, which would be impressive, considering he was fluent in all the Romance languages, plus a few more.

It became evident that Dean was carving a deliberate pattern into the hood of the car with a broken glass bottle. Castiel had first thought that it was just disoriented gibberish, but Dean’s arms moved in steady and practiced repetition. Spelling something out in long broad strokes. 

Not anything that Castiel could read. Peering past Dean’s shoulder, he caught a glimpse of angles and squares and a character that looked like the letter Y. To someone with less training, it would just look like random strokes, perhaps someone scribbling to get the gunk out of the tip of a ballpoint pen. 

Blood had crusted to Dean’s face and stained the collar of his jacket. Castiel made his final approach, only a couple yards away now.

“Dean?” he tried again. 

The movement Dean made was too fast to register. He surged up, Castiel blinked, and he was there, a few feet away, broken bottle extended towards Castiel. It wasn’t close enough to hurt him, although Castiel still worried. Dean was obviously not in his right mind at the moment. Castiel watched the blood that dripped from the soaked bandages on his wrists. He wasn’t sure who was in more danger right now.

Dean’s face was twisted up into an angry mask, bloody brows drawn and teeth bared. He screamed something at Castiel, who, to his credit, didn’t flinch. His voice echoed against the brick, heavy like it should crumble the walls, driving the syllables into Castiel’s eardrums. Arms raised, Castiel tried to appear non-threatening without backing down, even while he tensed in case Dean lunged with the bottle. 

He didn’t need to worry. A few feverish syllables spat in his direction. Then Dean’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed onto the broken blacktop, bottle smashing to the ground.

Castiel wasn’t fast enough to catch him but he did get him off the ground as quick as he could. Clumsily, he gathered Dean to his chest, huffing a bit at his weight, and struggled out of the alley and into the blueish light of the bodega.

The cashier, who had been engrossed in a glossy gossip magazine, startled when Castiel came into sight. Castiel kneeled to better hold Dean, resting his back against a shelf. Castiel supposed that hauling a bloodied unconscious man past the chips was unexpected. They either looked like bloody criminals or a gory pieta. Wasn’t that a thought. The Bodega Pieta. 

He remained cool and soothing to make sure the cashier didn’t panic. “May I use your phone, sir? It’s urgent.”

Dean needed someone who knew him. Didn’t he mention a brother? He should have asked for relations and contact information right away. But he had no idea that this would happen. He’d never heard of stigmata this violent and consuming.

Of course, famous stigmatists of old would sometimes be in ecstatics for days, only coming out of it on Sundays to receive the eucharist, but what he had just witnessed didn’t bring to mind the rapture of ecstasy. More like Dean had been in the grip of a righteous, burning anger. Something that might use him up. And he wasn’t certain that he’d ever heard of someone speaking in tongues during an episode. 

He had to leave Dean on the floor to take the handset over the counter from the cashier, who hadn’t said a word and merely watched him dial with wide eyes. Dean lay spread on the tile, unconscious but thankfully breathing just fine. In the light of the bodega Castiel could clearly make out the source of the blood on his face. A line of cuts across his brow, disappearing into his hair. Like someone had stuck him repeatedly with thick needles.

With thorns. The crown of thorns. One of the greatest symbols of Christ’s suffering for humanity.

The line connected and he turned away from Dean as the operator asked for information. Castiel’s calm was wavering the more he thought out this case. Dean was in the middle of something big. Things were never going to be the same.

 

* * *

 

Things filtered in one at a time. A cart clattered past the door. His lips were sealed and dry. Antiseptic fumes filled his nose. Something was beeping in the background and somebody shuffled their feet nearby. His eyelids were heavy, keeping the world away, but he felt light as a feather, drifting untethered, like he could jump into space, but his limbs were distant and sluggish. He shifted, disturbing a blanket across his lower body, and scrunched his brow. Two plus two equals four. He was in a hospital.

The light blinded him for a second, so he didn’t notice anything but the needle taped to the back of his hand and the bandages wrapped around his head.

“Ah, fuck,” he whispered. The club, the running. It all washed over him. More wounds had appeared, this time around his head. 

He watched his arm rise to feel around his forehead. No pain, but the bandages were annoying and a little itchy. The floaty detached feeling was either alcohol or more likely painkillers from the IV.

“Guess I can’t catch a break,” he turned to tell Sam at his bedside, then flinched back so hard the whole bed rattled.

The tan overcoat was folded over one of those uncomfortable plastic hospital chairs. Castiel stood in just his black uniform, hands clasped, watching Dean with a frown. Sam was nowhere to be seen.

“You’re awake,” he said, sounding a bit like he never expected Dean to wake again.

“Dude,” Dean shot back, getting his limbs under him to push himself into a less vulnerable sitting position. “Do  _ not  _ watch people sleep, it’s creepy.”

Castiel didn’t sound very apologetic when he said, “Apologies. I was… concerned.” He averted his eyes to the floor.

Dean fought his own version of a frown. They had only just met but it seemed like a weirdly unguarded expression for the priest. He managed to get upright in the bed, feeling a little like he was going to float away, then scowled at the IV.

“I hate these things. The wounds don’t even hurt afterwards, I don’t need painkillers.” He gave the line a few light tugs, itching to pull it out but wary of messing with any hospital equipment. The last thing he needed was to bleed out from something as mundane as an IV, right in front of a priest too. He suddenly realized the situation. That he was alone in a hospital room with the priest he took out for coffee. “Wait a second, what are you doing here?”

Still standing much too tall over Dean, Castiel asked, “What do you remember?”

“You,” Dean said, drifting from the IV to straighten his posture again. “I was at the club, I was bleeding, you were there. I ran.” Why did he run? He had nothing to hide from Castiel.

Everything had been taut with urgency. Aside from the pain, there hadn’t been anything on his mind but to get away and do something. To say something. To tell someone something. To get somewhere safe and leave a message.

But now he was at a hospital. He was drawing a blank between point A and point C.

“I called an ambulance and accompanied you to the hospital,” Castiel said.

“They let you do that?”

“Clergy do tend to get some leeway.”

Dean glanced behind Castiel, almost certain he would see his brother. “Where’s Sam?”

“The hospital contacted your next of kin but as you can imagine, it’s taking them some time to get here.”

Right. Traffic. Dean flopped back against the pillows.

“Well, I’m awake now and my family are coming, you can leave, Father.”

But Castiel made no move to leave. In fact, he sat down in the uncomfortable chair and seemed to settle in.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve decided to help you, Dean. If you’d let me.”

“I thought that was a big ‘no’ from the boss man.”

Castiel fiddled with a fingernail. “I’m not going to involve the Vatican if I can help it.”

“Oh,” Dean said with more than a little sarcasm. “Oh, wow. You’re going rogue? For me? I’m flattered.”

Castiel’s attention to the fingernail intensified. 

Whenever he moved, Dean was acutely aware of the gauze wrapped around his head. He poked at it a bit then managed to wedge a couple fingers underneath. Brushing over the wounds didn’t hurt. They were jagged little slices down his forehead and he knew they continued into his hair, completely around his head.

“This doesn’t feel like epilepsy,” Dean said quietly. It felt hot and heavy, it felt like panic and despair, and it was ripping him apart. He had no control over it. Even now, he could feel his pulse pick up and his palms dampen. It got a little difficult to breathe. 

Dean was scared.

“I imagine it wouldn’t,” Castiel said. “The stigmata can be very painful and disorienting.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” was Dean’s dry response. “So you really think it’s stigmata?”

“It has all the signs, except…”

“The believing in God thing.”

“I can’t puzzle that out,” Castiel said, propping his chin on his fist, brow furrowed. “It should be completely impossible for someone who doesn’t even believe in salvation to be stigmatic. The stigmata is dependent upon the subject’s particular sympathies with Christ.” He watched Dean closely, eyes flicking across his features like the answer might be written just under his skin. Sweat gathered in Dean’s palms. He wiped them off on the blankets. They both looked away.

Castiel continued. “I suppose the very definition of a miracle is that it is impossible. God can do anything, even overwrite the natural order. For whatever reason, He’s favored you.”

Dean scoffed before he could catch himself. “You’re so certain this is God.” There weren’t things like that—benevolent powerful beings that decided the fate of your immortal soul based on who you fucked and how often you lied. God, angels, all that stuff, just bedtime stories to get kids to behave.

The blurry shape of his mom’s face flashed across his vision. She faded from his memory with each year. He did remember one thing clearly though. It was her voice, soothing him to sleep.

“ _ Angels are watching over you, Dean _ .”

He sank further into the pillows like that could distance him from knot in his gut. Yeah, as real as the things John was wasting his life chasing.

“This is cool and all, but can you tell Him to stop doing that?” Dean said. “I didn’t ask for any of this and I don’t want it either. It’s kind of ruining my life, actually.”

Castiel looked sympathetic. “The only thing that could stop it is God Himself. You could ask Him, but you don’t strike me as the praying type.”

“Yeah, I’m not going to beg a god I don’t believe in. This thing… stigmata. It’s not a miracle, it’s torture. You better hope it’s not your god doing this.” 

The priest’s gaze sharpened. Dean was quickly discovering that this man could really unnerve him. Castiel had a piercing gaze, like he was looking into the pit of Dean’s essence, like he knew everything Dean had ever done and still found him worthy of such close attention. It was going to give Dean palpitations.

“Sometimes misfortune is a blessing in disguise,” Castiel said thoughtfully, finally averting his gaze.

Dean looked at his bandaged wrists again, imagining the split skin, displaced bones, and gallons of blood that had poured out. Some blessing.

“Couldn’t make me win the lotto or something? Had to be this?” He puffed out a resigned breath. Typical.

“Though it may not seem like it, the stigmata is a gift. It means that you’re holy, Dean. A very righteous man.”

Dean frowned. Holy? He couldn’t imagine anyone less deserving of some divine gift than himself. “That’s a joke, right? There’s no way I’m holy.”

Castiel tilted his head in a curious gesture. “Why not?”

Dean coughed a laugh and gestured to what made him the least likely candidate, which happened to be all of himself. “I’ve probably broken all of the commandments and then some. I’m just… I can’t be…” He bit his lip. Even outside the rules of religion he was blackened. He had his flaws. Lots of them. “It’s just ridiculous. It’s like calling a rock you picked out of a gutter a diamond. I’m a normal guy.” 

“You misunderstand,” Castiel started to say slowly, like he was approaching a growling bear. “It is a  _ gift _ , in the literal sense. Nothing you have done nor any circumstance you were born into could have earned it or pushed it away. Regardless of who you may or may not be, He’s chosen to give you grace.” He paused, watching Dean’s face carefully. “He loves you freely and without reservation, even the parts you may hate.”

“I don’t hate any parts of myself, I’m awesome.” He smirked, but it hurt because what his face really wanted to do was frown. Bringing up how worthy he was supposed to be now was just painful. “So, since you’re so convinced this is it, tell me more about stigmata.”

Castiel allowed him to drop it, probably sensing Dean’s obstinance. “It’s bestowed by God. Stigmatics sympathize so much with the suffering of Christ that they manifest the five wounds themselves. It’s very honorable.”

Dean chuckled nervously. Sympathize with the suffering of Christ? He’d never even read a Bible. But he was a little more concerned about the “five wounds.” “What are the five wounds?”

Castiel tapped his wrists. “One on each wrist, one on each foot, and the spear in the chest. Although from my reports, it seems you’ve also manifested the scourging on your back. And earlier, that was the crown of thorns.”

“Yeah.” Dean rolled his shoulders. The wounds only hurt when they appeared, so he wasn’t in any pain now, not that the painkillers would allow it, but he could still feel the stitches catching on his gown. It was disconcerting. “The first wounds made my heart stop. This isn’t terminal, is it?”

Castiel was quiet, suddenly engrossed in his shoes.

“Isn’t it?” Dean said in a smaller voice.

The priest finally raised his head, looking serious. “I should probably offer comfort here, but I won’t beat around the bush, the stigmata tends to be fatal. If it’s not the blood loss, the final wound, the spear, strikes the chest, which is incredibly difficult to survive.”

At Dean’s stunned silence, Castiel said, “But most people with the stigmata live very long lives first. The final wound is not common.”

Neither were the scourging or the crown wounds, but Dean had those. Castiel didn’t look like he much believed what he was saying either, and that just made the cold in Dean’s chest coil tighter. 

If all this stuff was real… There was a solid possibility that these were his last days. And it was getting very hard to deny that something not natural was happening to him.

Dean frantically went through a list he didn’t even know he had in his head. Sam would be okay. He and Bobby had each other. Bobby could easily hire another mechanic, the shop would be fine. Sam could sell Dean’s apartment and that could give him the final push through law school even without part of Dean’s income.

They would be devastated, of course, but they were both so resilient. They’d make it.

Goosebumps traveled up his arms. There was a strange calm around the idea of dying. He’d done all he could. He’d still do all he could before his time was up. Trying to swallow despite his dry throat, he stared intently at his knees under the blanket as he poked around his thoughts before he realized none of it mattered. Only one thing mattered. It was at his very core.

Castiel was watching him with a furrowed brow, just diligently observing. Neither felt the need to share any of their thoughts.

There was impatient rapping on the door, then Sam let himself in without waiting for an answer. He immediately went to Dean’s side in two long strides and proceeded to scan him top to bottom, even reaching out to poke at the the bandages on Dean’s head. 

“What happened?” Sam demanded.

Dean slapped his hands away, whatever it was that mattered quickly fading from his thoughts. “I’m not an Operation game, don’t poke that. They’re just some scratches. Leave it. You didn’t have to come.”

Sam crossed his arms with a scowl. “You’re my brother, of course I had to come.” Before Dean could object, he jerked his chin at Castiel. “Who’s this?”

Castiel stood from the chair with a wince for his abused backside and offered a hand. “I’m Father Castiel Novak.”

While Sam shook Castiel’s hand, Dean added, “We were talking and this happened. He got me to the hospital.”

“Thanks for that,” said Sam with some surprise. “Seems like the Church is really helping us out lately.”

“Yes,” said Castiel hesitantly. He didn’t mention that he was helping Dean off the books now. “Father Samandriel told me what happened. That’s why I’m here.”

At Sam’s quizzical look, Dean said, “He’s an investigator for the Vatican. He looks into stuff like this.”

“Epilepsy?” was Sam’s incredulous reply.

When the silence continued, Sam’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t think this is epilepsy.”

Castiel valiantly began to explain. “Dean is demonstrating the wounds of Christ, which are symptoms of the stigmata—”

“Wait,” Sam cut in. “You think Dean is Jesus 2.0?” He said it with a little laugh, but there was no humor in it.

Castiel frowned. “No, definitely not. I am only saying that he is likely experiencing the stigmata, which is a great honor.”

“Sam, this is the guy I asked for in that van,” Dean added. “Father Castiel.”

Sam’s lips pinched like this was paining him. “So this is destiny or something, is that what you’re saying?”

“More like divine providence,” Castiel said quietly, but Sam and Dean ignored him.

“Dean, we’ll figure this out, you don’t have to talk to some superstitious priest.”

“I know this sounds crazy, Sam, but the whole thing is crazy. Epilepsy doesn’t do this. And the van didn’t crash into anything! That’s not normal.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in this stuff. That’s what you keep telling me about John.”

“This is different, this is actually happening to me.”

Sam crossed his arms and tapped his fingers on his elbow. Then he turned to Castiel, who had been carefully quiet as they argued, and said shortly, “You can go.”

“Wait,” Dean started to say. But Castiel held up a hand and rummaged in a pocket, emerging with a white business card.

“My presence is causing strife,” he said. “But you can call me if you need anything. I do want to help.”

Dean accepted the card, lips pursed. This was really getting out of hand. 

“Alright,” Dean said. “Bye.” 

And Castiel was gone.

“Sam, just stop it,” Dean said the moment the priest disappeared.

Sam narrowed his eyes. “Stop what?”

“You know. Stop smothering me. I’m taking care of it.”

“Obviously not, because you’re in the hospital again. We’re brothers, Dean. We need to stick together. Let me help you.”

“No!” Dean snapped. “You’re not supposed to be the one doing this. You have a whole life going on, you can’t put that on hold just for my crap.”

Now Sam had that awful kicked-puppy look. “Dean,” he said quietly. “You deserve help just as much as I do.”

Dean groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose out of habit. The painkillers blocked a headache from forming. “Dude, don’t make this about my self-esteem or whatever. Why can’t you just listen to me? Do we have to fight every time we get together?”

“I’m just worried about you!” Sam burst out. “Doesn’t this sound crazy to you? You don’t believe John, why would you believe this guy? You’re acting off, you’ve been off since I moved out. Is that it?”

Dean rubbed his face. “Sam, I’m—”

“Dean Winchester, do not tell me you’re fine! You’re either suicidal, or you have epilepsy, or something else, or maybe both! But I told you when you started talking to John again that I did not want to see you hurting like you did when we were kids and this is exactly what I was talking about.”

At the volume, Dean scowled. “Jesus, I’m just saying that you don’t have to worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

“But you don’t have to. If this was happening to me, if I was bleeding, would you let me deal with it by myself?”

He had already lost the argument. It was easy to see where this was going. “Of course not, Sammy.”

“It’s Sam,” his brother ground out, venom not for the nickname but for everything else. “I’m not going to let you suffer alone. You are such a frustrating person.”

Dean chuckled. “You need someone to keep you on your toes.”

“More like on edge,” Sam said. And Dean winced when he noticed the dark circles still under Sam’s eyes. 

“Just forget about that guy, Dean. We’ll fix this, just us. Okay?”

Dean grunted noncommittally and looked at the business card. There was a weird foreign number crossed out with black pen and another number with a local New York prefix written beneath it. It was nice handwriting.

Sam leaned over and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, giving a squeeze. Dean leaned into it.

But he knew he wasn’t going to forget Castiel.


	5. Give us this day our daily bread

The moody silence on the drive back to Dean’s apartment told him everything he needed to know.

Sam cut the engine in a parking spot and said, “Don’t tell me to leave.” It was supposed to be stern, but all Dean heard was a little Sammy who couldn’t sleep at night without him.

“Go study,” Dean said, gathering his things. He popped his door, careful of the foot traffic on the sidewalk.

Sam twisted to give Dean his most insistent expression. “I can do that with you.”

Dean rolled his eyes where Sam couldn’t see. “Not while you keep waiting for me to spontaneously combust, you won’t. Nothing is going to happen. I’ll call if anything comes up.”

“I don’t know, you haven’t been doing very well on the spontaneous part, lately.”

“Third time’s the charm.”

Dean hopped out of the truck, perilously close to a deep puddle at the curb. When he stepped to avoid it, he collided with a pedestrian. He expected them to just brush it off and keep walking, but when he turned to see them, it was a businesswoman looking at the bandages on his wrists and around his head with distaste. Caught in the act, she immediately gave a wide-eyed start, still glancing conspicuously at his injuries, then walked quickly away.

Pulling the sleeves down to cover his wrists, Dean flashed a strained smile to Sam. Just keep it together.

“We worked so hard to get you to this point, Sam. You’re almost what you always dreamed about. I’ll be okay, but your grades won’t.”

With a dissatisfied frown, Sam turned the key and the engine rattled to life. “Okay, Dean. I trust you. Just call me in the morning so I know you didn’t suffocate in your sleep.”

“I’m not going to get SIDS, I’m twenty-seven for God’s sake.”

“Call me.” It brokered no argument.

“Yes, sir,” Dean mocked. Sam shot him a sour look as he pulled away.

The grin slipped off Dean’s face as he made his way into the building. Sam was really just a kid. A genius kid who skipped ahead in college and was in one of the top law schools in the nation while simultaneously clerking in the courts. He had enough on his plate already.

Dean didn’t even know how Sam managed to drop everything to come see him whenever his body went haywire. Sam must have missed classes and court dates. That sounded like a good way to fall behind in school and get fired. A good way for his life goals to go down the drain. Dean got the uncomfortable impression that Sam would abandon it all for him. 

But that wasn’t going to happen, because Dean was doing just fine and he would get through this stigmata, or whatever it was, by himself.

The “by himself” plan seemed less attractive when he was back in his empty apartment. Bobby had forbidden him from the shop, telling him to do something like sleep and drink orange juice until he stopped bleeding. Dean didn’t really have anything to do.

The sheets on the bed were pulled flat and tucked neatly around the edges. Sam’s doing. Dean never saw the point, if they were just going to get messed up again that night.

The made bed seemed impersonal, like the long line of beds in each new motel room when they were still with John. He yanked the sheets back into some semblance of having been lived in, wrinkling all of Sam’s hard work. Sorry, little brother.

Without Sam around, the apartment was again empty and silent. Dean sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh and rubbed his face. His limbs felt like lead and his brain was fried from exhaustion and the fading painkillers. The bedside clock beeped once. 7 PM.

The mess on the bedside table caught his eye. A secondhand yellowed phone, a dry water glass, a used tube of lip balm, a half empty bottle of his trusty hangover companion aspirin, a grease-stained takeout menu… and John’s latest package.

That he picked up. The worn postcards and little figurine didn’t get half a glance, and the key was brushed aside for something else. Like magnets, his fingers went straight for that weird necklace. Moving the black beads through his fingers, he brought the silver crucifix into the palm of his hand. Objectively it was really light, very small and thin, but it seemed to grow weight in his hand, until he was hunched over it, peering close.

It was important for some reason. Out of everything John had sent him, a lot of which ended up in the trash or pushed into the back of a cupboard, this gave him a sense of there being a reason that he had it.

He wondered how John had acquired it. The postcards and figurine were easy to guess, some tourist shop. But the necklace didn’t look like any cheap souvenir. Holding it in his hand, he felt a little electrified, like there was a live pulsing current in it that he had joined, becoming part of the circuit. Foreign words whispered just out of hearing range. His skin prickled like he was being watched.

Carefully, he closed his hand around the crucifix. Without thinking he pocketed the necklace, fingers lingering over the slight bulge it created in his pocket in an anxious, protective gesture.

Dean had to face it, John was going to call again. “Soon,” whatever that meant to him. He would go for weeks without any contact, just like when Dean was a kid, although this time he had sounded like he really meant to call again quickly.

Suddenly, he didn’t want to be here anymore. The apartment was full of reminders of Sam and John, even Lisa, if he glanced at the side of the bed she always took. His body protested when he reached for the phone. He could imagine Sam scolding him.  _ Lie down! Rest! You’re sick! _ But he wouldn’t be able to do that tonight. 

“Hello?” Benny said when the phone stopped ringing.

“Hey, man, club tonight?” Dean said, lip curling a bit at his friend’s voice.

“Dean? Aren’t you supposed to be half dead?”

“Thanks, Benny,” Dean scowled. “I’m fine. I won’t even dance, I just want drinks.”

A sigh. “I’d love to, Dean, especially to keep an eye on you, but Andrea and I are already going out.”

Dean tried to overlook the comment about needing to be chaperoned. “Oh. Alright. You two have fun. And use protection.”

“I didn’t fall off the boat yesterday, brother. I should be telling  _ you  _ to do that. Unless you and Lisa are ready for that.”

Dean gripped the handset tighter. He didn’t have the energy to tell Benny about Lisa now. He’d cross that bridge when he came to it. “Yeah, we’re definitely not.”

The phone call ended and despite himself he found his fingers deftly punching in Lisa’s number. He slammed the handset back in the cradle before the call could go through.

Who else did he have? Benny was busy and he wasn’t going to bother Sam again. It was sinking in that he didn’t have very many friends. Spending all his free time drinking and dancing somehow didn’t make him more sociable. One night stands didn’t call back.

Needing something to do with his hands so he didn’t pick up the phone and tell 911 his life was going down the drain, he stuck them in his pockets. The corner of a piece of cardstock stabbed into the pad of his finger, and he drew out Castiel’s card.

Now  _ that _ was an absolutely crazy idea.

Castiel was something entirely out of Dean’s reach, like they were on different planes of existence. Flowers probably grew wherever he stepped and he probably blessed babies in his free time with solemn phrases in Latin. He didn’t go to nightclubs with flirty drunks who could care less about being holy and right.

He was so certain he would fail that almost as some sort of self imposed punishment to prove his unworthiness he picked up the phone and carefully dialled. 

“This is Father Castiel Novak.”

“Cas,” Dean said. For some reason he stopped there, his vocal cords in knots. This was much harder than he had imagined.

“Hello, Dean,” Castiel said, somehow recognizing him over the phone just from saying his name.  _ Oh _ . It was the nickname. The way Castiel said  _ Dean’s _ name had the hair raising on his arms. The low gravel of his voice was really,  _ really _ hot, even distorted over the phone. 

“Um, hey,” was his eloquent response. “I was calling because I was wondering if you’d maybe want to sort of…” he mumbled, “go get drinks or something.” He braced for rejection.

Castiel said, “Alright.” Just like that, like he’d hardly had to think about his answer.

Dean stared unseeing at the divider between his bed and the kitchen for a full minute before he cleared his throat nervously and admitted, “Right, I wasn’t expecting to get this far. You’re sure?”

There was a huff of breath. “Yes, I’m very sure I’d like to imbibe alcoholic beverages with you.”

The formal phrasing brought a tiny smile to Dean’s face, which only grew when he sensed that had been Castiel’s intent.

“I’ll buy as thanks for chasing me down and bringing me to the hospital. Promise I won’t ditch you like a bad date this time.”

“That sounds preferable.”

“Okay, since you apparently know where I live, meet me at my apartment and we can head there together.”

“Of course,” Castiel said softly. “See you soon.”

He hung up, heart pounding. Oh God. That actually worked. He was actually going to the club with a hot priest, the guy who somehow convinced Dean his injuries were supernatural. He jumped off the bed with more energy than he should have had and ran to the bathroom, splashing water on his face, rubbing it into his eyes and looking into his flushed face in the mirror.

He could do this. He could take this. It was just drinks. Besides, the guy was celibate and straight. Nothing was going to happen.

Disappointment started to rise and he punched it back down. Jesus Christ, he was not a hormonal middle schooler.

Castiel would keep it completely professional, just talk about his case and maybe politely inquire about Dean’s life but it wasn’t like they were going to be having any heart to hearts or anything.  _ Definitely _ no lips to lips. He’d just watch Dean with those piercing sea-blue eyes and maybe flash a quick hidden smile if one of Dean’s references finally landed… 

This was a bad idea.

But soon there was a knock on his door and then Castiel was in his kitchen.

In his uniform.

Dean had already changed into his favorite band T-shirt and a pair of nice jeans, which meant they were strategically ripped around the knees. He looked Castiel up and down incredulously, then ripped his eyes away when they kept getting stuck on his features.

“Cas, you’re not wearing that to a club. You shouldn’t even wear that to a bar. Or anywhere really, but I guess that’s a Church thing.”

Castiel looked down at his clothes, light dawning on his face like he was seeing them for he first time. “We’re going to a club? These are inappropriate? I wear these everywhere, the uniform identifies me.”

“Yeah, well, the only miracles at Aqua Nightclub are how much alcohol poisoning someone can survive. You don’t need to identify yourself.” Dean rummaged through his dresser. Castiel was only slightly shorter than himself, so he handed over one of his smaller shirts and another pair of jeans. They were taken with some trepidation and Dean gestured to his bathroom. “They aren’t stained with sin, I do my laundry. Cleanliness is next to godliness or whatever.”

“That’s not my concern…” Castiel made intense eye contact. “You’re lending me your own clothes. Thank you, Dean.” Thankfully he was closing the bathroom door before he could notice Dean’s light blush.

Castiel returned with his uniform and coat folded in his arms and he looked… Normal. He looked like a person Dean would see on the street. Intellectually, Dean knew Castiel was just as human as he was, but without the uniform it really sank in that Castiel was just a guy. Not an avatar of a religion he didn’t believe in, not a divine being. Just someone who looked really good in Dean’s clothes.

The shirt was a little too tight, which only highlighted the light muscle of Castiel’s arms and chest. His collarbone peeked out of the neckline. The jeans fit fine. His uniform had been boxy and stiff and his coat had been draped over his body, giving him kind of a shapeless silhouette. Dean’s clothes hugged all the right places.

Dean managed to stop staring when Castiel said, “These pants are ripped.”

There were tastefully frayed holes around the knees and thighs. Dean said, “They’re supposed to be, it looks sweet. I’ve got ‘em too.”

“Sweet.” The word sounded like a foreign language on Castiel’s tongue, like he had no idea what it meant.

“Yeah, like, cool. Awesome. Fresh?” When Castiel squinted at him in confusion Dean laughed a little. Anyone else struggling to understand this much would probably annoy him, but for some reason it just made Castiel endearing. “It’s fashionable. You know about fashion, right?”

“I wouldn’t exactly say I know much about it. Clergy uniform hasn’t changed for well over a hundred years.” He set his clothes on the kitchen table and picked a strip of white plastic off the top. “Maybe I should at least wear my collar…”

“Nope. Nada.” Dean pushed Castiel’s hand down so he dropped the collar. “Plainclothes. I’m not taking Father Castiel to the club, I’m taking Cas. I mean…” He quickly removed his hand, realizing it had settled over Castiel’s, which was warm and soft and hadn’t pulled away. “If that’s okay. God’s not going to strike you down for wearing a Led Zeppelin tee.”

“No, He won’t.” Castiel plucked his T-shirt to see it better. It was black with a white print of Led Zeppelin’s Icarus design. Considering how often the winged figure was mistaken for a falling angel, it was kind of ironic Castiel the priest was wearing it.

Cas rubbed his throat where the collar should have sat once he got a good enough look at his body. “I feel naked.”

Dean tried very hard to keep his expression neutral even as his brain conjured up the image. Damn, he was like some Victorian girl, blushing at exposed arms and neck.

“Well, you’re definitely not naked,” Dean said a little too fast. “This is how normal people dress, man. You’re… The clothes… You look good,” he finished lamely, then smacked a hand over his eyes.

“Are you alright?” he heard Castiel say.

“Yeah, just let me…” He breathed out, thinking of that Zen tape of Sam’s he’d secretly listened to. 

This was like a nightmare where he showed up to class without pants, except it was real, and he was acting like a fool in front of somebody he just met. A priest who had for some reason decided to go out for drinks with him.

Somebody that was definitely not on the market, by the way, although his body didn’t seem to give a shit about that. It was like his brain melted out of his ears just because Castiel put on a  _ T-shirt _ .

Without really thinking about it, his free hand curled around the necklace in his pocket. It helped, only because it reminded him that John existed and no matter what happened tonight, he was going to call again. 

From experience, he knew exactly what John would say about all this. It included at least two slurs and something about men being stoic and controlled, not blushing stuttering messes.

Now he was scowling. He needed to make some things up to John, but not that. That was bullshit. He didn’t need Sam to tell him that one.

He removed his hand. Castiel was still standing patiently in the kitchen, although he was looking at what was magnetized to the fridge. Mostly dated receipts, one of Sam’s old report cards, another takeout menu… He lightly touched a yellowed photo, uncurling the corner to see the full image. Dean expected to be twitchy about a near-stranger looking at one of his most personal items, but, well. It was only Cas.

“That’s my mom and me.” He came up behind Castiel. “Only picture I have of her.”

“She looks very happy,” Castiel remarked. It was true, there was a sunny smile on her face and a few strands of long hair over her bright eyes. She was laid out on the grass, little Dean hugged to her chest.

“I think she was.” Dean swallowed hard and found himself saying, “I think we all were, once.”

Castiel glanced at him out of the corner of his eye but didn’t say anything. Dean finally turned away, stiff and grim, and grabbed his keys off the table. He was still sore, physically and otherwise. But Castiel wasn’t here to hear his sob story.

They got to the subway station in one piece, thankfully his lower body was wound-free and could get him places just fine. Dean had to show Castiel how to pay for a ticket at a machine and then feed it into the turnstile. It was satisfying to be the one telling Castiel how things worked, for once. When they were on the train they found two open seats and Castiel sat with his back ramrod straight and his hands folded in his lap. He looked like he had a pole up his ass.

“Dude, relax,” Dean said, sprawled comfortably over his seat in a way that bumped their knees together. “It’s only a couple stops. All those things they say about the subway being filled with demon germs are totally untrue, I’ve been riding forever and I’m not dead yet.”

“I am relaxed. But thank you for affirming my faith in your immune system.”

Dean scoffed, smiling wide. So Castiel did have a sense of humor.

A feeling of giddy lightness followed him the whole way to the club. He even thought Cas gave him a few amused glances. 

It was the club on a typical night. The music was loud, making his teeth buzz. As his eyes adjusted he glanced at Castiel, who squinted dramatically as he tried to make out Dean in the low light. His lips shaped words, but Dean couldn’t hear them. Instead of finding out what was said, he smiled wide and reached out, taking Castiel’s hand. Castiel cocked his head at the contact but followed when Dean led them to a table.

Dean flopped in the booth, Castiel gingerly taking a spot at his side. Cupping a hand around his ear, Dean shouted, “They can take our orders from here!”

Castiel sat back, nodding seriously. Dean cracked a grin at the waiter that took their orders and came back with their drinks. He toasted Castiel from afar, who reciprocated with another serious head tilt, and downed his beverage in one go.

Castiel watched him before turning back to his own drink. He sniffed it, as if the smell would further instruct him, before making like Dean and swallowing the contents of his glass all at once. He slammed the glass onto the table and leaned forward, coughing. Dean rubbed his back with an inaudible chuckle.

“You can nurse it a little more, dude,” Dean shouted at the back of Castiel’s head as he continued to wheeze. “That takes practice.”

“I— I’ve discovered that,” Castiel managed.

“You don’t drink?”

Castiel cocked his head to indicate he hadn’t heard. Dean took a breath and repeated. “You don’t drink?”

Castiel shook his head. “There are no bars or liquor stores in Vatican City.”

Dean sat back aghast. Religious folk really were deprived.

The waiter returned and Dean asked for another round. This time Castiel sipped the mojito. He kept making scrunched faces, like he wasn’t even sure he really liked the alcohol, but far too soon he’d finished his second drink and was asking for a third anyway.

“You’re taking to this like a fish to water,” Dean said. Castiel wrinkled his nose behind his glass in acknowledgement. 

There was a flash of worry that Castiel was drinking so much in an attempt to impress Dean, but he dismissed the idea. 

Castiel leaned toward Dean, extending too far and bonking his cheek against Dean’s shoulder. Dean allowed it, smiling in confusion and amusement. “What is it, Cas?”

Castiel met Dean’s gaze, and not just for a moment. For what felt like an eternity, they simply stared. Dean felt the grin slipping off his face. He wasn’t one for cliches, but Castiel’s eyes were really the blue of the ocean on a clear day. A deep faceted color that only just hinted at the teeming depths below. He could watch that color for the rest of his life.

Too soon, the moment was over. Castiel blinked a couple times, frowning to himself, and shifted his cheek against Dean’s shoulder, breaking the gaze. He said something, but Dean couldn’t hear over the noise, and Dean heaved a sigh. The club was really not conducive to conversation.

He gulped the rest of his drink and stood, teetering only a little, and gestured for Castiel to follow. Castiel carefully maneuvered the booth and got to his feet, only to collapse back against the seat, holding his head.

“You’re drunk!” Dean exclaimed with glee.

Castiel made an abortive movement between a nod and a shake of the head. 

Dean grabbed his shoulder and got him upright, dragging him across the floor to the door. Once they were outside, he waved at passing taxis.

“It was very loud in there,” Castiel said, hanging off Dean. “Everything is spinning.”

Dean chuckled. Even drunk, Castiel was Castiel. “That’s the club, man.”

“Thank you for bringing me out, Dean. But I don’t think I’ll go to a club again.”

“Dude, you didn’t even get to dance. You just downed drinks like a champ. That really gonna chase you off?”

“Yes,” Castiel replied seriously to the teasing. 

Dean gripped Castiel’s waist as a taxi finally pulled up to the curb. It splashed water over their shoes. Clubgoers passed them on the sidewalk, heels clacking against the cement. Dean had to get Castiel into the taxi but he found himself in no hurry to give up his grip. For a second, quick enough that maybe he wouldn’t notice, he tilted his head into the crook of Castiel’s neck. He fit perfectly.

Castiel started to drift off in the taxi. Dean watched streetlights flash over his face. Stole the time to trace his features. Then he turned to his own window, away from things that couldn’t be.

Dragging Castiel up to his apartment was a hassle when the priest was half-awake and unhelpfully disoriented, but he got the guy inside, shoes off, and dumped him on the bed with a grumble.

“Yeah, take the bed, I can use the couch. No, I insist,” Dean mocked the nonexistient argument. Castiel released a deep snore in response.

Dean had release a little laugh. He had a priest passed out on his bed because he drank himself stupid his first time in a club. 

Shoving Castiel over to the other side of the bed, Dean sat on his side and dialed the bedside phone.

“Who is this?” slurred Sam’s voice.

“Heya, Sammy,” said Dean.

“Dean.” Sam suddenly sounded wide awake. “Are you okay? Do I need to call the hospital?”

“Dude, calm down. I’m fine. Want to hear a joke?”

“... Are you drunk?”

“This nobody gets the worst blessing ever and a priest comes to tell him that, he asks the priest out for drinks and he says yes for some reason. Then the priest gets drunk off his ass because there are no bars in Vatican City.”

“... Is that the joke? Cause that sounds like it might just be your life.”

“Yeah, pretty lame.”

Sam sighed heavily. There was a sound like he walked into the hallway. “Do you need anything, Dean? It’s late.”

“Can’t I just say hi?”

“Not at midnight.”

Dean looked at the clock. Damn, it really was midnight. Hadn’t it just been past 7:00?

“Cas is with me, we’re all good,” he said, as if Castiel’s presence was going to guarantee his well being.

“You got the priest drunk?”

“His name is Cas and he got himself drunk, I only pointed him in the right direction.”

“He’s… he’s cool, right? Not going to take advantage or anything?”

“Cas would never hurt me,” Dean said, deeply serious in a way he hardly recognized. He simply knew this, like he knew he needed air to breathe. “Besides, he’s dead asleep right now and I’m taking the couch.”

“You sure you two just met? You’ve got a real profound bond already.”

Dean felt his face flush and mumbled a denial into the phone nobody believed. “Help me figure out how to not face this in the morning.”

“Move to Antarctica and change your name,” Sam said. “I know all about the name change legalese.” There was a pause. “But I think you should face it. You and him… I don’t have to like him to see that you two seem to fit. So far, anyway.”

_ Fit _ . Dean glanced over at the sleeping form on his bed covers. “I don’t know what to do, Sam.”

“Go to sleep,” Sam replied. “In the morning you’ll be hoping I don’t even remember this conversation and I’ll have to remind you that you were the drunk one and I was perfectly sober.”

“Not helpful,” Dean hissed.

“Dean, I don’t honestly know how to help the fact that you’ve got a priest in your bed. That’s your own fault.”

“Don’t say it like that,” Dean groaned. “That makes it sound worse.”

“See, you said it yourself, it isn’t that bad. Could be worse.”

Dean made a face. Sam knew.

“Listen, Dean, just rest and I’m sure in the morning it’ll all work out.”

“Fine,” was Dean’s petulant reply. “Night, Sammy.”

Despite Dean’s mood, Sam’s response was gentle. “Goodnight, Dean.”

 

* * *

 

When Castiel woke up, Dean was already in the wind.


	6. And forgive us our tresspasses

Dean wasn’t answering the phone.

Castiel swept into Singer Auto and almost crashed directly into Bobby Singer himself.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel said, a touch frantic. He did not want to piss off Dean’s dad.

“You’re the priest,” was his only response. It wasn’t the outright hate of Sam, but neither Dean’s acceptance. Bobby brushed off his hat. He was the right side of suspicious. There was a curious gleam in his eye.

Castiel nodded, hiking his camera equipment higher on his back. “Father Castiel. You can call me Cas— Castiel. Dean does.” While Bobby was nodding, Castiel pressed. “Have you heard from Dean today? I’ve been trying to contact him without success.”

Bobby hadn’t. He tried Dean himself and got the answering machine both times. Tapping his fingers thoughtfully on the phone, he put in another number. The tapping made a hollow noise on the plastic shell of the phone, the dialing  _ click-click-click _ ed. From the chair he’d claimed in Bobby’s office, Castiel stiffened a little when he caught a few syllables in Sam’s voice. Sam was not exactly his biggest fan.

“Dean’s not at work again,” Bobby said, facing the wall like his talk with Sam could be private when it was in the same room as Castiel. There was silence for a second as Bobby listened to what Sam had to say, then he nodded despite his audience being across the city. “Thought so. That priest is here. He could go check.”

A burst of noise from the phone.

“Yeesh, you’d think he killed a man,” from Bobby.

More Sam, quieter this time. A sigh from Bobby, exasperated and a little over-fond.

“Alright, take care, son.” 

The click of the handset in the cradle. Bobby turned around with a key outstretched in his palm.

“Sam don’t like you,” Bobby informed him. “But he trusts you. Seems to think you an’ Dean got some sort of  _ profound bond _ and wouldn’t let death stop you. Neither of us can leave right now so you should check on him.” His eyes were narrowed and his hand was curled slightly around the key.

He still didn’t quite trust Castiel, and Castiel couldn’t blame him. Something above the natural order was happening to his son and a representative of a religion he didn’t believe in was claiming all sorts of things about God and the divine. It would make Castiel cautious too.

Castiel took the keys, nodding his head in acknowledgement. 

Bobby stood back with a warning glare that said if Castiel did anything to his boy, he would be meeting Jesus sooner rather than later. 

 

* * *

 

Castiel keyed into the apartment building, shouldering the heavy door out of the way and making for the elevator. His steps slowed the closer he got, and it seemed like the path grew longer instead of shorter, the elevator doors shrinking to just a speck in the distance. He stopped, gripping the keys hard enough to make little red indents in his palms.

There were plenty of reasons Dean wouldn’t be picking up his phone. He could have slept in. He could have been in the shower. He could be running an errand. It didn’t have to mean he was bleeding out, or had bled out and was already lying dead in his apartment.

The distance disappeared and he was in the elevator, which took its sweet time getting to Dean’s floor. It rose softly and shuddered to a halt. Castiel stepped into the hallway, steps audible on the compacted carpet.

Dean’s door looked like all the others. Wood grain, bronze number plate, matching hardware, worn at the corners. Castiel shuffled around outside it, gathering courage. Heat rose in his cheeks when he realized what he was doing. It was only Dean, another subject of another case. He needed to pull himself together.

Castiel knocked on Dean’s door and called his name. Courtesy was still important, even if they were worried. No answer. So he slid the key home and let himself in.

The kitchen area was empty but the moment he was in full view of the studio’s main room, Dean’s name died on his lips.

Where before the long wall had been a blank cream color, now large rough shapes filled it, gleaming and wet in the illumination from the huge windows. The shapes had the obvious signs of being a language, but Castiel couldn’t read it. However, they were familiar from flashes of a dark alley and a metallic scream. Dean stood in front of them, painting more with a brush of red paint.

“Dean?”

No reaction. Only careful, trancelike strokes.

Castiel’s chest tightened with a knot of anxiety. The alleyway had not been a one-off instance, Dean was acting strange again. He could plainly see that Dean had begun to bleed too. Blood streaked his neck and forearms, where his long sleeves had been rolled up to the elbows. It mixed with flecks of bright red until it seemed like Dean had only decorated himself with lines of dark paint.

The symbols were small, about the size of a hand, painted horizontally across the wall. They dripped in some places where the paint was too thick, but it did little to obscure the characters themselves. It must have taken hours at the pace Dean was going. He didn’t even glance at Castiel and only continued to paint in silence.

Worry found momentary respite when his investigator side perked up. What was Dean painting? What was happening to Dean? What did it all mean?

Careful to be quiet, Castiel shouldered the camera equipment off his back and set it up. Then he hit the REC button on the recorder in his pocket. He hadn’t been able to get through to Dean like this in the alleyway, so he had to wait it out. Might as well document it for later consideration.

The first click and flash made Dean flinch, but he didn’t stop or look away from his work. Eventually he became accustomed to the sound and continued his horizontal journey across the wall without interruption. Castiel got a dozen pictures over a period of about twenty minutes when Dean’s arm fell limp at his side and he dropped the brush to the ground.

Castiel righted himself from his crouch behind the camera. “Are you done, Dean?”

Dean faced Castiel with an eerie intense look. He studied Castiel with a gaze much too knowing and old, deciding whether he had any worth.

“I’m not Dean.” He sounded like he had a bad cold.

“Alright,” Castiel replied, outwardly calm while his heart rate ratcheted up a few notches. He was getting through to something. Someone. “Who are you?”

Dean turned back to the wall, head turning as he scanned his work. “The messenger is not important.”

“The messenger…?” Castiel muttered. What in the world was he talking about?

He didn’t get a chance to ask, because Dean slid to the floor, each muscle giving out in progression, until he was slumped against the wall. Castiel rushed over and kneeled, bumping knees with Dean, so he was the first thing Dean saw when he blinked back to awareness.

“Are you well? You seemed to be in a trance.” Castiel peered into Dean’s eyes for any sign of disorientation, but instead just remembered why he’d been blushing outside Dean’s door.

Dean glanced around, rubbing his forehead where the blood from the crown of thorns cuts had begun to dry in sticky, itchy lines. Then, he buried his eyes in the heels of his palms, shoulders drawn up. When he began making quiet little sounds of distress, Castiel automatically put a hand on his upper arm and rubbed, all of his training as a community priest kicking in.

“What’s wrong?”

Dean managed to stop the noises and sucked in shallow breaths. His hands fell away and Castiel could see that he was crying, tears making the dry blood under his eyes bright.

“I’m so sad, Cas,” he whispered. “I don’t know why. It’s like my heart was ripped out. I’ve been so lonely, it’s hurt so much. I’m so sad.”

Castiel didn’t say anything. What more could he say? He’d promised to figure out what was happening. He’d said he wouldn’t leave until this was over. Hesitantly, he curled his arms around Dean’s shoulders in a light hug. To his surprise, Dean immediately leaned into it, shoulders shaking as he kept his sorrow inside. Castiel rubbed circles on his back thoughtfully.

“It makes sense that you’re feeling this way, Dean. There are two parts to the stigmata: the visible and invisible. You’re familiar with the visible stigmata. But the invisible stigmata is often overlooked since it’s less of a spectacle.”

“Yeah,” Dean said into his chest. “What is it?”

“Emotional torment, I’m afraid.” Castiel’s lips twisted into a frown at the thought. As if unwillingly suffering the wounds wasn’t enough, Dean was subjected to mental stress as well. “Stigmatists experience the spiritual pains of Christ as well.”

“So I’m on some sort of supernatural PMS? Crying and bleeding? Oh man,” Dean said, like he’d just had an epiphany. “Is that why I can’t stop thinking about my dad?”

“Bobby?”

“No, my birth father. John. He’s not around. He left us.”

Castiel made a noise of understanding. “Well, Christ did feel abandoned by his father on the cross. He asked why God had forsaken him.”

“He get an answer?”

“Not in as many words.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, just breathing, taking strength from one another. Dean was heavy and warm in his arms. His breath hitched. Castiel tightened his grip and Dean breathed again.

Castiel thought about his original assignment. It had been several days since he’d contacted the Cardinal, he would be suspicious of Castiel’s silence. There had been a few calls to his room phone at Father Samandriel’s church but he had let them ring out. If he told the Cardinal what he was doing, that he was aiding someone outside the Church without permission, he would surely be recalled. And if he was recalled, he would refuse. If he refused, he didn’t know what the Cardinal would do. Would they physically drag him back? Demote him? Excommunicate him entirely?

Castiel held Dean closer at the thought. Then Dean would be without anyone who had a chance at understanding what was happening to him. He’d receive the rest of the wounds. Spiritually, he would be without guidance. And Castiel would perhaps be barred from his life’s work, no longer given the power to prove or refute miracles.

Dean seemed to notice that he was curled into Castiel and untangled himself from his limbs. Castiel felt cold for a second, like something important had just been ripped away. Holding Dean had felt… right. He hadn’t even noticed how natural it seemed until it was gone. He’d been a solid presence. And it had been more than that, it had been  _ Dean  _ that was solid and warm nearby, not just anyone. 

Castiel swallowed heavily and squeezed his eyes shut, silently reciting an Our Father to get his mind back on track. Even once he felt like he was thinking clearly again, the sense of loss dogged his heels. 

Wet spots stood out on Castiel’s coat where Dean’s tears had fallen. Pink patches rose on Dean’s cheeks and he got to his feet too quickly, almost wobbling back onto the floor. Castiel caught his elbow in time.

“I’m gonna—” Dean jerked a thumb over his shoulder and didn’t finish the thought, instead retreating to the bathroom and closing the door a little harder than necessary. 

Castiel returned to his camera setup and snapped a few more photos of the wall without Dean. The red was stark against the original cream color of the surface, so much so that it almost seemed to pop and glow, like the language was so powerful that a physical medium simply couldn’t contain it. He blinked and the impression faded. They were just symbols.

Or words, perhaps. He got closer and took some photos of individual characters, growing excited despite himself. This was such a challenge. Gabriel would love to see this language, maybe he could even translate what it said. He’d have pages to write about this in his report, analyzing the little details like brush strokes and punctuation and location… Paired with a subject experiencing the stigmata, it was the most intriguing case he’d ever had. 

Shuffling sounds made Castiel glance back, just to confirm they were Dean. He had wrapped himself in a blanket and sat at the end of his bed, staring blankly at the floor under his feet. It made him seem smaller, somehow, especially compared to the size of the bed. The blood was gone from his face. Castiel turned back to the wall, cluing Dean in on his thought process.

“You seemed to be in some sort of trance, something that made you someone else. I got pictures of you painting these symbols on the wall. But what about you, Dean? Sometimes subjects retain memories of experiences like this. Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t remember,” was his only reply.

Castiel snapped another picture, missing Dean’s flinch at the sound. “Are you certain? Maybe we could sit down and talk about it—”

“I’ve decided,” Dean interrupted, voice rough but determined. “That I don’t believe in God.”

That got through to Castiel. His finger paused over the shutter release and he turned to fully face Dean. “What?” What about that early morning conversation in Father Samandriel’s church?

“And you,” Dean said, getting into the cadence of a rant. “What sort of priest acts like a scientist? There’s no way you can go around testing blood and saying God did it. That doesn’t even make any sense.”

Castiel approached the bed, setting his camera on a table. “You’ve been through a lot today. Perhaps I should have kept the questions for later—”

“No! Ask me. Ask me now how God is blessing me with pain. Ask about how He loves me so much He’s going to tear me apart. You don’t make any sense,  _ Father _ .”

For some reason, the use of his title raised Castiel’s hackles. It hurt. They were beyond that. “Why can’t I believe in both miracles and fact? Why is the divine not an objective truth?”

“There’s just no such thing as God. Life’s just chaos and violence and random unpredictable evil. There’s about as much proof of miracles as for ghosts or vampires or werewolves. It’s all just fairytales.”

“Fairytales? And what’s happening to you, Dean?” He grabbed Dean’s forearm and brandished the fresh bandages in his face. “Is this a fairytale?”

“I dunno,” Dean mumbled, backing down now that the conversation had turned to him. “The doctors said epilepsy…”

Castiel’s voice was as flat as his expression. “I may not be that kind of doctor, but even I know that’s not epilepsy.”

“But you…” Dean pulled his arm away, accusation on his face. “You think God is doing this to me. What the hell kind of God would just…! Torture me? You said all that stuff about God  _ loving  _ me.”

“Stigmata is a gift—” Castiel began to explain again, but Dean cut him off.

“Well I don’t want it! I don’t believe, I don’t want this! I want my life back!”

Dean was panting. Castiel took a mental step back, realizing that he was getting sucked into Dean’s emotional torment. A deep breath. Then another. 

“Perhaps we should calm down.”

Dean threw the blanket off his shoulders and grabbed his jacket and keys. He was out the door before Castiel had the time to react. Castiel thought about letting him go, letting him cool off somewhere. But he didn’t want to leave the conversation there, with both of them stewing.

He caught up with Dean on the sidewalk. Dean took long purposeful strides, ignoring Castiel’s attempts to talk. Pedestrians parted around them, wary of the storm cloud above Dean. They walked through a flower stand, walls of colorful blooms bracketing them together, and even with anger on his face, Castiel admired Dean’s profile. Dean was going through a horrible torturous experience, facing powers unknown to man. And he still had the will to tell it to fuck off, for lack of a better phrase, even if that didn’t work. 

He could rage against God all he wanted, but it wouldn’t do him any good. God’s ways were not readily apparent to man.

He didn’t tell Dean that, though, because he sat down at a table under an awning at the cafe, resolutely not looking at Castiel, and said, “If you say anything like ‘God works in mysterious ways’ I can’t be held accountable for my actions.”

While the words were harsh, Castiel could detect a hint of apology in them. An olive branch extended. They could meet in the middle ground. He smiled. “I would never dream of it.”

A waiter brought Dean a soda and took their orders. Sandwiches for a late lunch. Apparently Dean was a regular and the waiter didn’t even have to ask what he wanted. Dean gave a slight smile and Castiel watched in fascination as a blush spread across the waiter’s face before he scurried away. 

“Do you have a way with all waitstaff?”

“Why? Jealous?”

“I just find it hard to believe that every place you’ve brought me so far, it seems like you’re so familiar.”

“Oh, I’m familiar,” Dean said. “I like a person in uniform.” And he swept Castiel from top to bottom, slight quirk on his lips.

Inexplicably, Castiel felt about as hot in his collar as he had with the eyes of an entire city on him.

“So, what was that back there?” Dean said. “I felt like a specimen being poked under a microscope.”

“I guess I stopped being a priest and slipped back into being a scientist.”

“Seriously, what kind of scientist is a priest anyway?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I do,” Dean insisted, crossing his arms. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “I did just spill my soul to you.”

Castiel conceded the point. “Well, I’ve always been interested in the human experience. To understand the corporeal human experience we break things down into discrete units. Atoms, elements, hours, inches, letters. We do that to God too—the father, son, and holy ghost. Eucharist—the bread and the wine, the body and blood. And each book of the Bible.”

Castiel spread his hands on the tabletop and continued at Dean’s raised eyebrow. It wasn’t clear where he was going with this.

“It made sense to me,” he said, mirroring Dean’s earlier accusations. “As an organic chemist I could study units that were natural and tangible. As a priest I can study units that are supernatural and metaphysical. As an investigator, I can do both at once, and that encompasses the entirety of life.”

“You were an organic chemist? Did you walk around with glasses with Scotch tape on the sides and pocket protectors?”

Castiel squirmed. Dean smirked.

“I did, actually. The glasses were only for the lab but… I did get attached and wear them elsewhere.”

Dean leaned back in his chair and laughed. Castiel relaxed minutely. A small victory. Rapport.

“My parents wanted me to become a scientist, I don’t think they particularly cared what kind. I liked it, but I wasn’t satisfied. I became a priest because the Church had compassion that chemistry lacked. I could change lives directly. And because of the holes.”

“The holes?”

“In the science, in the theories. How does a fish just jump on land and become a man one day? Something happened to jumpstart the universe, what was it? There were all these things science just couldn’t explain. Universal, spiritual things. I figured there was a larger power at play. God filled in those holes.”

“You’re the only person I’ve ever heard of that got into religion because of science.”

“We all have unique spiritual journeys, I suppose.”

“You’re weird, Cas. And nerdy.” Dean smiled and Cas almost heard the follow up in the air between them.  _ I like that _ .

He liked Dean, too.

His gut twisted. That was the other reason he became a priest. His parents were strictly religious and they hoped that when Castiel blushed around other boys it was just a phase. Despite not sharing their faith at the time, he’d hoped too for their sake. But here he was in his thirties, heart fluttering because he made Dean Winchester smile. 

In all his traveling to disprove miracles, in pushing pencils at the Vatican, he was blessed with a sort of isolation that warded off the baser aspects of the human experience. His own struggles—with his faith, his attraction—were earthly human things he could put aside with his mission in mind. The Vatican—the Church—no matter where he went was of one mind about everything. He could trust that every priest and cardinal and archbishop prioritized service to God above all else, just like he did. 

Well, usually he could trust that. For years he’d approached every report of a miracle with an open heart and mind, and every community he crushed when he unearthed the truth, whether it be corrupt priests hoping a spectacle would bring in more money or simply an impression on a wall made by chance and weather… They blurred together in his mind. It was one endless stream of the misuse of God’s name on earth. Especially with his recent case in Brazil, which looked so much like a real miracle, but was ripped away from him by his needlessly obstinate Cardinal.

He tamped down the affection and managed to return Dean’s smile with one that was only halfway strained as he tried to keep it in check. Couldn’t give anyone ideas about how much he was enjoying this. He’d have to move on, eventually. After he helped Dean figure out what was going on, or the more sobering option, when Dean succumbed to the stigmata completely and breathed his last. No matter the outcome, Cas would return to his holy isolation and leave Dean’s world far behind.

He didn’t have enough time to feel the despair that welled up at that thought, because Dean slipped from his seat and crashed into a waitress, sending glasses from the tray in her hand shattering to the cement around his head like a broken halo.

“Dean!” Cas dove out of his chair.

Dean’s eyes were wide and he was thrashing, attempting to curl around his torso but always yanked into a backwards arch as his spine lifted from the ground and a guttural scream finally tore out of his throat. Transfixed by the pain radiating from his face, it took Castiel a few moments to feel the wetness soaking his knees. He looked down and was greeted with a pool of blood.

He’d never been present when Dean received the wounds. The pain he expected, but the intensity, the raw unadulterated agony etched in every line of Dean’s body, in every clenched muscle and grind of his teeth, was almost too much. Tears slipped from Dean’s eyes as he fought down screams, reduced to long grunts that would become screams if he relaxed. But he couldn’t relax, he couldn’t curl up, wasn’t afforded a modicum of self-defense. His arms were thrown wide and his legs were extended, as if he were actually on a cross. The slices in his forehead bled into the creases of his eyes until he was crying blood.

Castiel wanted to look away. Dean was reduced, debased by pain, a spectacle for the crowd drawing up around them. All of his stubbornness and pride, all those beautiful Dean qualities, were stripped away. 

It was torture. Dean was right. Castiel wavered, the blow to his faith almost tangible. What God would do this?

“Dean,” Castiel said again, urgently, gripping the man’s upper arm in an attempt to get through to him, wherever it was he went during an episode. “Where is it, where does it hurt?”

Dean’s eyes cleared for a moment, locking with Castiel’s. Then he glanced downward and his back arched again with a grunt that sounded like every scream he’d ever contained was trying to get out.

Castiel followed his gaze and ripped off his shoes, revealing sopping, bloody socks. The white weave was so red it was nearly black. He left those on as a weak form of bandage. Dean was receiving the foot wounds, probably feeling each pound of the stake through his flesh and bones. 

Waitstaff and patrons were hovering in his peripheral. Someone mentioned that they’d called an ambulance. Castiel shook his head, unable to hear anymore. No. No hospital was going to help Dean now.

After what felt like a few lifetimes, Dean stopped convulsing. He panted and whined, horrible painful sounds. Castiel brushed a hand through his sweaty hair and got his arms under his legs and back, hoisting him into a bridal carry. At this rate, Castiel would develop actual muscle. 

They left the cafe with a trail of blood.

 

* * *

 

Father Samandriel was suspiciously prepared when Castiel returned to his church with an injured person in tow. The closet of medical supplies made a triumphant comeback. Castiel offered sympathies when Samandriel explained. 

“A lot of my youth are in gangs,” said the Father, lips turned down in sorrow. “I take communion with them on Sundays. With their families and friends. I baptize their siblings. All those young people, losing life and limb to violence on the street. Sometimes they come here, they come to a place they trust, somewhere they feel safe and cared for…” 

Castiel put a hand on the young priest’s shoulder. “That’s a lot to bear. It’s noble of you to offer help like that.”

Father Samandriel just shook his head, brushing off the praise. “I can’t do nothing. They refuse hospitals—they don’t have the money or the right papers or any number of reasons.”

“Do you have the archdiocese’s support?”

“No, they don’t know. They might make me stop if they did.” Father Samandriel’s eyes widened, realizing he’d just told an official from the Vatican what he wouldn’t even tell his archdiocese. “But, I can’t let children bleed out on God’s doorstep,” he tried to explain. “You understand, you’d do anything to heal the people and communities you are responsible for.”

Castiel watched Dean, still unconscious, face smooth after it had been twisted with that horrible pain. He wouldn’t get the Cardinal’s support in this endeavor. This miracle was his responsibility alone.

Anything for the people he was responsible for.

There was an exhaustive first aid kit waiting for them in the church apartment. They cleaned Dean up as best they could, wiping the blood off his brow and bandaging his wrists and feet, then settled him into the creaky old bed. 

Castiel worried a fingernail as he watched the rise and fall of his chest. 

He pulled out his tape recorder. There was only one person he could think of turning to.

Father Samandriel pulled a chair up beside the bed. “I’ll wait for him to wake. You do what you need to.”

Castiel said his thanks and left the apartment, headed for the church office. There, he settled at the desk and pulled the phone out of the corner, dialing long distance. He let out a breath of relief when the call connected despite the time of day.

“Gabriel,” was the curt introduction he got.

“Brother. It’s Castiel.” Even he could hear the way his voice cracked as it clung to the last vestiges of energy. He rubbed a hand over his face. When had he last slept?

“Cassie! Hold on.” He heard him speak through the muffled handset and then he was back. “I’m all yours. What has you calling me at this time of day?”

“I have a challenge for you, if you’re willing. It may or may not be nonsense. But, one condition: you can’t tell the Cardinal.”

“Oh?” Gabriel dropped the teasing tone. Suddenly he was dead serious. “Hit me.”

He rewound the tape to a few days ago, that night in the alley, and played it into the mouthpiece of the phone. The gibberish shouting was just as chilling as when he’d heard it in person, maybe even more so when the echo of the alleyway was multiplied by the recording. When it ended and Gabriel was still silent, Castiel knew he’d recognized it.

“Well?”

“Castiel, who is saying this?”

“That’s not important right now, tell me what he’s saying.”

“Well, the language is definitely Aramaic. What Jesus and his disciples spoke. It’s dead, I only heard it in university classrooms.” A pause while Gabriel muttered to himself, presumably pinning down the phonetics. “Roughly, he’s saying, ‘ _ The kingdom of God is inside you and all around you, not in mansions of wood and stone. Split a piece of wood and I am there. Lift a stone and you will find me _ .’ You know for how mad he sounds, you wouldn’t think he’d be saying something so eloquent. Cassie? Hello?”

Castiel wrote Gabriel’s translation as fast as he could, forgetting about the phone. Blinking down at his notes, he chewed his lip. His handwriting was scratchy and atrocious, obviously put down in haste. But he could read it and that’s what mattered. “Excuse my distraction, I was writing it down.”

“Your confession would probably put me to sleep if getting distracted on the phone is what you ask forgiveness for. It’s fine, brother. This is related to the case the Cardinal gave you?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure how much I should say over the phone.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I know for a fact that my line is secure.”

Castiel tapped his pen as he considered two things: whether he should tell Gabriel anything about Dean and why Gabriel had ensured his phone remained untapped in the first place. It didn’t seem like being a translator lended itself to any sort of espionage. But he thought about the exuberant, earnest Father Samandriel dressing wounds on children. He was learning that there was often more to people than what first met the eye.

“The subject, DW,” Castiel conceded, “has been experiencing symptoms of the stigmata. However, there are unusual ancillary wounds and… the subject is not Catholic.”

“Not Catholic?” No shock, but more than a little skepticism. “Then what is he? Lutheran? Baptist?”

“Atheist.”

A burst of laughter. “Good joke, didn’t think you had it in you. But seriously.”

Castiel frowned and hoped that it carried in his voice. “I am being completely serious, Brother. He doesn’t believe in God.”

“And he’s speaking Aramaic and bleeding from the wrists.”

“Yes.”

Gabriel was unusually quiet for a minute. No small feat—it seemed that with language as his specialty, he never knew when to stop using it. As Castiel was about to ask if he was alright, Gabriel hung up with a hiss of static and a clatter of plastic. Castiel looked at his own phone with distaste. Not only was that rude, it was out of character. 

Something was up with Gabriel.

 

* * *

 

He padded softly over the smooth tile. Father Samandriel had offered slippers, but Dean wasn’t going to impose. Besides, he thought they were probably the Father’s own slippers. The thought of taking from someone, even just borrowing, made him more uncomfortable than bare feet against cold floors. He’d only bleed on them anyway.

He managed to sleep through the night and only remembered vague impressions of discomfiting dreams. Despite the pain of the wounds fading, he still felt like shit. There was an ache behind his eyes, his biceps were tender, and he kept trying to scrape congealed blood from under his fingernails. The whole ordeal was taking a toll on his body. And his mouth was still so dry.

The gray stone walls were perfectly shaped but rough. Dean briefly trailed his fingers across the stone before pulling away, mindful of the wet bandages on his wrists. He’d only dirty it.

Dean had never actually been inside a church. He’d seen plenty across the city but they were distant, foreign places. Inside it was dim and quiet, as he had always suspected. Nearly silent without the congregation. The thick stone walls kept the rest of the world at bay. After years of the constant bustle of New York, it was an alien sensation.

Some tension released from his muscles, something he’d only ever found dancing. While not exactly the club, it felt good, he realized. Like being wrapped in a cocoon of velvety silence.

Passing through a hallway, he regarded the massive sanctuary. The ceiling soared high above his head, supported by stone arches and decorated with gilded scaffolding. Rows of pews took up a majority of the space. Shuffling through an opening, he approached the altar, drawn to the focus of it all.

Fresh flowers, bronze sconces, and flights of white unlit candles flanked a massive wooden crucifix mounted on the wall. Overstated lines carved a rough figure of Jesus hanging from the cross. The figure’s head drooped to the side, arms limp above the head. Big, obvious bolts right through the palms. Crown of thorns stabbing into the forehead. 

Dean tightened the blanket over his shoulders, suddenly cold in just a T-shirt and sweatpants. 

The face was wrong. The eyes were softly closed, as if asleep, and the lips were drawn in a gentle frown. A cloth covered the waist, giving him a sense of privacy. The skin was clean, free of blood and gore.

Bolts through the palms.

All of it was wrong.

It was supposed to be pain. Supposed to be horrible and dirty and vulnerable. The bolts were supposed to be through the wrists.

Transfixed, he didn’t realize someone had joined him until they brushed shoulders. Normally he would have cried personal space, but when he saw who it was, the thought faded. Castiel tilted his head, silently asking what was on his mind.

“It’s all wrong,” Dean said by way of explanation. Somehow Castiel divined his meaning.

“Icons are supposed to be inspirational, not exact,” he said, hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat. “Historians didn’t discover that people were crucified through the wrists until recently, so much art is, as you can imagine, not accurate. It still has value.”

The low light of the sanctuary made Castiel’s eyes gleam and warmed his face. He blended right into the scene, with his collar and uniform and the comfortable set of his shoulders. Dean could imagine him here on an average Sunday reassuring parishioners with his solid presence. Dean, meanwhile, stuck out like a sore thumb. The only place he had to compare a church to was a nightclub.

Licking his lips, Dean coughed. Once. Twice. Then he couldn’t stop. His throat was like the Sahara, with choking dust and spiky cacti and everything. He curled further into the blanket when Castiel put a hand on his shoulder. When he looked up, Castiel’s face was close. Too close. The guy really had no sense of proper social boundaries. Dean found he didn’t mind.

“Are you alright?”

Dean sent him a sidelong look.

“Right, dumb question. What’s wrong?”

“It’s stupid.”

“Dean, I take confessions. It’s not stupid. Tell me.”

Dean licked his lips with a wince. That wasn’t easy to do with a dry tongue. “I’ve been super thirsty lately. I don’t know why. No matter what I drink it won’t go away.”

Castiel’s face turned away slightly in thought and Dean almost followed before getting the hang of himself. What the hell? He was not having a romantic moment with a priest. A celibate, heterosexual priest. In a church, of all places. Right in front of Jesus.

“It could be…” Castiel trailed off, brow scrunched as he thought. “Wait here, I have an idea.”

Then Dean was alone and the quiet of the sanctuary wrapped around him again.

Taking a seat in a pew, he only had to wait a moment for Castiel to return. He emerged from a door hidden near the altar in new vestments with a gold chalice in one hand and a plate in the other. Reverently, he balanced them on the pew in front of Dean and said a few words over what turned out to be red wine and bread.

“No way,” Dean scoffed. “Holy communion?”

“Some stigmatics are said to have been sustained only by the eucharist,” Castiel said matter of factly. “Something similar could be affecting you.”

Dean was quiet as Castiel did some more to the bread and wine. He wasn’t Catholic, he didn’t believe in God or any of that stuff. At least, he didn’t used to. This situation was kind of forcing his hand as far as belief in the supernatural went. 

“Isn’t communion only for Catholics?” 

Wasn’t it only for the worthy?

“There are exceptions in dire situations. Your situation is certainly dire.”

Castiel held out a chunk of bread. Dean accepted it, held it in the palm of his hand, just looking at it. It was only bread. It wasn’t his religion. But he couldn’t help but feel inadequate, all the same. This was something for the faithful, people who tried to live right.

Dean was an alcoholic mechanic whose own father didn’t want him. He fucked whoever, whenever. Took God’s name in vain. If there was an earthly indulgence, he’d probably indulged in it.

“What if I don’t want to take it?” he said.

Castiel shrugged, laying his chin on his arm across the back of the pew in front of Dean. “No one is going to force you. But it may help, so at least think about it.”

“Oh, I’m thinking,” Dean said bitterly. “I’m thinking I’m not good enough for a piece of fuc— freaking bread.”

Castiel sat up with a frown. “I don’t know you very well, Dean, but you don’t seem like the king of Hell. Were you baptized?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. His mom had made sure of that. 

“Have you been to confession recently?”

“Never.”

“Well,” Castiel readjusted so he faced away from Dean, looking to the side instead. “First confession, that’s exciting.” There was no trace of the expected sarcasm, Castiel sounded like this was actually something to look forward to. “ _ In the name of the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit _ . Welcome. What are your sins?”

“Wait,” Dean laughed once, a nervous, tired sound. “You think I’d actually just spill my guts to you? No offense, but we just met.” 

He’d never want to face Castiel again, if he knew anything about Dean. They could start with the little things and work their way up to his greatest failures. 

He’d probably have to tell him that if Castiel weren’t a priest, he’d be all over him.

Besides, wouldn’t Castiel just go off and share all of Dean’s problems with his priest buddies? Dean Winchester’s a queer, he’s a whore, he drinks too much and fights too often and he’s got enough daddy issues to make up for those of every boy and girl he ever fucked.

“Again, no one’s going to make you, Dean. But confession isn’t about me and you, it’s about you and God. I’m only the conduit. I’m bound by the Seal of Confession to never utter a word of what you’ve said to anyone else, even if it meant my death. Even if you can’t place your trust in me—a man—perhaps you could place your trust in God.”

“Except I don’t believe in God.”

Castiel simply shrugged, unbothered by Dean’s reticence. “Well then, if an all-powerful being isn’t going to hear you, it’s just me—mortal and bound to silence. What could it hurt?”

“Both my pride and my ego,” Dean muttered. He felt a little zing of satisfaction when that curled Castiel’s lip in amusement.

“What are your sins?” Castiel repeated in that level voice that made believing in a big man in the sky sound sane and logical.

Dean relented. “What aren’t my sins?” As far as he was aware, everything from drinking to sneezing too loudly was an affront to God.

Castiel inclined his head, acknowledging Dean’s concern. “It is most important that you divulge your gravest sins, perhaps not every sin.”

Dean’s gravest sins. Wasn’t that a loaded statement. 

He pulled the blanket closer around his shoulders, allowing himself a moment to think. It would be easy to bullshit something, or tell a lighter truth. Something like, _ Father, I’ve had sex outside of marriage, probably a thousand times. How many Hail Marys is that?  _ But it ate at him.

_ Gravest  _ sins.

Unequivocally, the worst thing he does is let people down. He failed to protect Sam growing up, he failed to be the son Bobby deserved. They both let him off the hook for it, very unfairly in his opinion, but as long as he remembered, that’s what mattered.

The failure that shaped his life and the lives of his family was how Dean failed John.

“I…” he started, finding that his throat had closed sometime between his last question and now. He wasn’t sure if he’d opened his mouth to say he wasn’t going to spill his heart to a near stranger or to admit his gravest sin.

Castiel waited patiently, gaze still averted, posture straight but undemanding, like a statue. Dean rolled the soft bread around in his hand. A little kernel of forgiveness from a God he didn’t believe in. Yet something that might finally satisfy his thirst.

He sighed. He was being ridiculous. So he spit out, “I let down my dad.”

Castiel nodded slowly. “How?”

“I have to be specific?”

“This is a conversation, remember, Dean?”

“Fine. I wasn’t good enough. I acted like an idiot and didn’t take care of Sammy. I tell everyone that CPS took me and Sammy away but that’s not what really happened.”

“What happened?” When Dean was silent, Castiel interjected softly. “God already knows everything that’s happened, you won’t be shocking him with new information, but saying it out loud helps.”

Dean worked his jaw as he considered. 

There were maybe two or three people in the world who knew what really happened. Dean, John, and their social worker Jim. Sam had been too young to remember, and when asked, Dean lied. Shamefully, he told a different truth: CPS had noticed John’s odd behavior and taken Sam and Dean into custody.

But what really happened was that Dean failed.

 

* * *

 

There wasn’t a single moment that caused it. But when it coalesced, Dean knew. 

His childhood with John was spotty at best. Sam’s self help books said that trauma can mess with memories, repress some and amplify some and mix others up. Dean didn’t think he’d call himself traumatized, that was a little much, but John had definitely affected him permanently. Made his mark on him forever.

He told people that Child Protective Services took notice of John, but while his memory might not be the best, he knew that was a lie. 

In reality, Dean drove him away.

He didn’t know if it was being caught stealing food, the lip, the fact that he didn’t keep an eye on Sammy, or any number of mistakes. But John didn’t want him anymore.

The last incident was the worst. 

John left them near a police station with enough supplies for the mandatory three days of abandonment before they would become a ward of the state. Then he took off, Impala rumbling into the distance. 

No  _ I love you _ . No  _ goodbye _ .

Just  _ take care of your brother _ .

Dean held Sammy’s little hand too hard, watching the tail lights disappear. Sam didn’t understand for a long time. John usually left them alone, he wasn’t unfamiliar with being left behind for days, if not weeks. Sam didn’t stop crying for a week when he realized his dad wasn’t coming back.

Dean had known what was going to happen. Even if the signs hadn’t been clear in the way John avoided his gaze and told them to stay packed up, like they might need to leave any moment, John was up front about it.

He said, “That’s your mission, soldier. Take care of Sammy.”

So Dean did.

 

* * *

 

“I absolve you.”

Dean stared at the bread. He felt odd. Lighter, smaller, younger. Like he’d shed a weighted blanket.

Time to face the music.

“This is the part where you punish me. One hundred hail Marys and all that?”

There was a contemplative pause, where Dean could almost feel Castiel thinking. He hadn’t interrupted the story with any more questions, didn’t prod him for details or make any immediate judgements. He was just still and silent, somehow communicating in his absence of movement or sound that he was listening. Really  _ hearing  _ Dean.

He warmed at the thought, mostly in his cheeks. When he looked up, Castiel was haloed in the soft light of the sanctuary, strategically positioned at Jesus’s feet, face impassive but not hard, eyes averted, lashes low. Holy like the icon behind him.

The sudden rush of euphoric appreciation aimed at the priest almost knocked Dean over.

He only had a few moments to puzzle over the feeling before Castiel finally spoke. Dean braced himself.

“For penance, reflect on who cares for you, and how they express it. Thank them, when you get the chance.”

Silence.

“What? That’s it?”

“God loves us,” Castiel said in the matter-of-fact tone of a scientist. “He gave up his life for us. Having an honest conversation with Him isn’t about berating you for your perceived faults, it’s about His love. That is what is most important to understand in the end.” He finally looked at Dean with a gaze so fathomless and certain that he felt lost in it. “There are those who love you without conditions. Always.”

What was it like, being so sure that someone up there cared? He couldn’t believe in that.

Just below where the bread lay in his palm, Dean could see blood had begun to soak through the bandages again. He didn’t want to believe that the being Castiel trusted would do something like this.

Closing his eyes, he popped the bread in his mouth.

Instantly, an ache in his abdomen he had hardly noticed in comparison to the wounds disappeared. Castiel passed the chalice to Dean, who gulped down the mouthful of wine inside. It was like the first drop of water in the mouth of a man roasting under the sun. Just like that, the stabbing thirst was gone. Even his sore muscles relaxed and his head stopped protesting every quick movement. For the first time in the last few days of pain and Hell on earth, he felt normal. Like a whole person again.

Castiel raised an eyebrow in question. Did it work?

“I feel great,” Dean confirmed, passing the chalice back. He even sounded peppier. 

A small smile lit up Castiel’s face. He returned to the plate and chalice, murmuring more words, and disappeared behind the altar again. When he came back, he held out a hand, which Dean took, doing his best to ignore the little sparks where their skin met, and he pulled Dean to his feet.

“The eucharist sustains you, as suspected,” Castiel said. “We can do this two times a day, if you require it.”

Dean grimaced. “Do I have to tell you another deep dark secret every time?”

“No, you’ve confessed recently. That is sufficient.”

“Let me think about it,” Dean said. Not that he didn’t want to feel normal regularly, but he still wasn’t sure about the God thing. 

“About the episode you had this evening,” Castiel said as they navigated through the pews. “You were speaking Aramaic. It’s a very old language, from the time of Jesus.”

“That’s weird, because I don’t know Aramaic. I can only speak English, and maybe some pig Latin…” Dean’s joke lasted about two seconds before he began to feel the first tendrils of panic. “What’s happening to me?”

Castiel reached out and took his hands, leaning into his determination. “Dean, we will get to the bottom of this. I promise.”

For some reason, Dean believed him.


	7. As we forgive those who trespass against us

Castiel helped him back to his apartment. He was ashamed to immediately collapse into his bed and sleep. There was no more pain, but he felt fuzzy. Exhausted. He awoke and stared up at the ceiling, taking the respite for what it was, until he noticed Castiel at his bedside.

The priest sat in a kitchen chair with his head bowed, the necklace John sent was wrapped around his hand and pressed against his forehead. His lips moved in the slightest approximation of words. Prayer.

“I’ve never seen you pray before,” Dean said, and how he hated how weakly the words came out. His throat was sore from the swallowed screams.

Castiel looked up, lips still parted but no longer forming words. He squeezed the necklace, the beads making little clicking sounds. The crucifix swung in a gentle arc. The only gentle thing about it.

“It’s been a long time since I prayed,” Castiel admitted. Dean’s heart gave a stupid little flutter at the thought that Castiel would break his abstinence for him. Castiel was careful to roll up the necklace and place it back on Dean’s nightstand. “I didn’t think an atheist would have a rosary.”

So that’s what it was. “I had no idea I did.”

“How?”

“John got it for me.”

“Why?”

Dean closed his eyes. He tried not to think about why John did what he did. “Hell if I know. He’s always sending me weird stuff. He’s got a lot of superstitions.” He squeezed his eyes in thought. “Actually, this one is really weird now that I think about it. I wouldn’t describe the stuff he sends me as Christian. It’s things like smudge sticks and rabbits feet. I wonder why he sent me this.”

He answered his own question, releasing it as a heavy sigh. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. John’s nuts.”

“It sounds like it does matter. He seems important to you.”

“Cas, thanks for the worry, but don’t do the priest thing with my dad.”

“Alright.” Castiel backed off easy, and Dean both appreciated and hated it. 

He kinda did want to talk about John with someone who would actually listen to how Dean felt about it. Sam was still too hurt by John to do anything but hate him and Bobby disliked him on principal. John was trying. In his own weird, messed up way, he was trying. And by blood, he was Dean’s family. The only he had outside Sam and Bobby.

Speaking of.

“Now that you’re awake, we should call Sam and Bobby.”

“No!” Dean caught Castiel’s wrist as he reached for the bedside phone. “No, you can’t bother them with this.”

Castiel furrowed his brow. “Dean, they care about you, they deserve to know that you’ve been hurt. They can help you and you need the support of loved ones.”

Sam’s tired eyes and the worried tilt of Bobby’s mouth flashed across his mind. They had already given up so much valuable time and energy for him. He didn’t need to bother them about it again.

“They support me, I already know that,” Dean was quick to reassure. “Just, don’t tell them. Please.”

Besides, Castiel had promised to stick by him. And in some way, Dean felt that was all he needed to survive this. Castiel’s devotion.

Even as he thought the word, Dean realized he was in too deep. Castiel was watching him with concern sketched across his face, in the line of his brow and the focus of his gaze. All of that concentrated on Dean, all at once. Castiel cared about him. And Dean trusted him, something he hadn’t given anyone in awhile. With Lisa, given her constant disappearing acts, he didn’t extend his trust. Sam and Bobby had it, of course, to an extent. 

But not like this man seemed to have convinced out of him in the past few days.

Maybe it was because he was a priest. They were supposed to be supportive and upstanding and all those good things. It was their job to put values and virtues and morality first. Trusting priests was supposed to be natural, as long as he got over the fact that they believed in a big guy in the clouds. They were the definition of good.

No. That wasn’t why he trusted Castiel.

He trusted him because he was Cas, not because he was a priest. 

It wasn’t his job to help Dean, who was an atheist and a disaster besides. Castiel was bandaging Dean, carrying him around, getting to know him, investigating for him.  _ Praying for him. _ Castiel was  _ caring  _ for Dean.

He didn’t have to do that, but he did anyway. 

That was Cas—the priest whose faith encompassed even the faithless.

That was a lot of love. That was a lot of faith.

Dean realized they were staring. He remembered something Lisa had said once, back when they first danced, about pupils expanding when you looked at someone you liked and he hoped none of his thoughts were made visible by something as stupid as his pupils. 

He was staring because he’d been deep in thought, he had no idea why Castiel was staring back.

Slowly, Castiel retracted his hand. “If that’s what you really wish.”

“It is.”

Dean laid back on the bed now that Castiel was reigned in, ignoring the priest’s expression. He examined the bandages around his wrists, turning them this way and that to see all of the care Castiel had put into applying them. With the wounds covered he could almost pretend this wasn’t happening. 

“With my feet, that makes four of the five wounds,” he said.

The last one was the spear. He put a hand over his chest, applying light pressure with his fingertips, imagining the piercing pain ripping through his organs and muscle and bone. Suddenly he felt very small and fragile. He was only breakable flesh and bone versus the iron will of God. What sort of match was that?

This thing was going to kill him.

“Hey, you know what's scarier than not believing in God? Believing in Him. I mean,  _ really  _ believing in Him. It's a fucking terrifying thought.”

“It can be,” Castiel said diplomatically. “Some find it comforting. The thought of Him has always been overwhelming. That’s why we describe our reaction to Him as awe—it’s a mix of fear and wonder.”

“I understand the fear. What’s so wonderful about it?”

Castiel looked at Dean for a few moments. Then he reached out and gently took Dean’s hand. His skin was soft where Dean’s was rough from years working with his hands. Castiel guided Dean’s hand open and traced lines on his palm, sending goosebumps up Dean’s arm.

Castiel had been touching him a lot, lately. Whether it was carrying his unconscious body, bandaging his wounds, or moments like this, where physical contact wasn’t required, but he seemed compelled to do it anyway. Gentle, but firm. Careful. 

Reverent. 

Dean wanted to stop that line of thought in its tracks but Castiel wasn’t helping.

“He made you. He made you perfectly.”

Normally Dean would vehemently reject that creationist bullshit, but the way Castiel said it, with the awe he said was reserved for God, tied his vocal cords in knots. He hoped the heat in his face wasn’t visible.

His mind was spinning. What was Castiel doing? If he didn’t know any better, if Castiel weren’t obviously straight and definitely a priest, Dean would take this  _ way  _ differently. But since he knew better, he knew Castiel was just trying to offer comfort. Maybe he was a bit too touchy feely about it, but that was it. It seemed like he didn’t really understand personal space.

Dean couldn’t complain about the pleasant touch though. When Castiel pulled away, he extended his hand a few inches, seeking the contact, then curled his fingers into a fist and forced himself away. Castiel watched him, Dean didn’t know if he’d noticed, and he almost looked sad. Like he was mourning something.

He remembered when he thought Castiel was as expressive as a block of stone. Every line of his face spoke to Dean now.

Why couldn’t they stop looking at each other?

“Let’s call Sam and Bobby,” Castiel said quietly. 

His brother and guardian dropped everything the moment Castiel called. Silence stretched between Castiel and Dean while they waited for company. Eyes cast to the side, but still seated facing Dean’s bed, Castiel watched the floor with an intense expression, like if he wasn’t aware of if every second, it might fall out from beneath them. Meanwhile, Dean was hyperaware that Castiel was in that state. Since the revelation that he trusted the guy, it was hard to refrain from analyzing everything he did, looking for what convinced him in the first place. All he found was that Castiel was definitely as attractive as he’d first thought and that maybe his libido was speaking out of turn with his brain.

Dean was drifting when the bed shook as someone rolled onto it.

“Take your shoes off,” he said without opening his eyes.

A huff, then the sound of two shoes hitting the floor. Sam always had to be scolded about shoes in bed. “How are you doing?”

“Feel like I’ve been bitch-slapped by God. Literally.” When he opened his eyes, Sam looked like a kicked puppy where he was sprawled out beside Dean, probably making himself sick with worry. Dean heaved an imaginary sigh. “But don’t worry about it, I’m still kicking.” 

No need to tell Sam about the final wound.

“Just know I’m here for you, Dean. Okay?”

“I couldn’t get rid of you even if I wanted.”

“You’re right. Sleep. You look exhausted.”

Dean rolled over until Sam could tuck his head under his chin and finally allowed himself to breathe out, safe in his brother’s arms. 

 

* * *

 

Everything stilled except the dust motes floating through the rays of evening light from the windows. Soft snores kept him grounded in the apartment. Peeking over the kitchen divider, he watched Sam and Dean rest. Sam had his nose buried in Dean’s hair and his arms around his brother, protective even in sleep. He still wore his suit sans coat and his face was stiff and displeased. What he could see of Dean, since his back was to the kitchen, was relaxed, hard lines of stress and pain eased in unconsciousness. 

Good. Dean was never supposed to look that way.

Witnessing Dean receive the wounds had shaken him. He felt like a building rocked by an earthquake, unsettled and disturbed. So he turned to someone he could always trust. He borrowed Dean’s rosary and prayed for intercession, that God would reconsider Dean’s blessing.

The fact that Dean’s predicament so deeply troubled him was not lost on him. Sometime between deciding Dean was the case he couldn’t let go and Dean receiving the foot wounds, this had become personal It wasn’t concern about his reputation or his ego that drove him, but some primal need to see Dean whole and well. He felt like he might shatter if he failed him.

Castiel knew that was probably his attraction talking, and that was something he should meditate on, but he didn’t want to. If it served Dean, it was alright for now. He could work on himself later.

Besides, just a little time in Dean’s presence was refreshing in a way Castiel hadn’t found in prayer or anywhere else. 

Bobby Singer shifted where he sat at the kitchen table across from Castiel. His mouth was pursed in close observation of the priest, and Castiel tried not to feel like he was being judged and found lacking. But Bobby didn’t comment, just adjusted his trucker cap and returned his focus to the boys on the bed.

“They’ve got something special, those two,” Bobby said, voice low to blend into the quiet.

Castiel nodded. He could see that.

“I may be their legal guardian, but I’ll never really be their father, or anything close to what they are for each other.”

Castiel turned to fully face Bobby. That seemed a bit unfair. “They seem to treat you like a father. They may rely on one another for certain things, but they rely on you for the validation they never got from their biological father.”

“They tell you that or you just figure that out with your priest powers?”

“It’s usually a bit of both,” Castiel said, smiling a little.  _ Priest powers _ . He was about as mundane as any layman. He only disproved miracles, he didn’t perform them.

Bobby tapped a finger against the kitchen tabletop in consideration. He came to a decision. 

Bobby Singer didn’t seem like the sort of man to take any nonsense. He knew what he wanted and he knew the clearest path to it. If someone wasn’t welcome, it would be made explicit. Castiel hadn’t expected to be trusted with the keys to his son’s house, but that’s what got them there today. So he wasn’t altogether shocked when Bobby began talking.

“When I first took them in, Dean didn’t trust me one whit. Wouldn’t even let me carry their bags into the house. He knows how to take care of himself, he spent more ‘n enough time doing it as a kid. But,” Bobby gave him a significant look, “For some reason, he’s taken to you. If you do anything to hurt my boy, I’ll deal with you personally, and the wrath of God will have nothing on me. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Castiel found himself saying.

“Good.” 

Bobby rose from his chair and tipped his hat with a pleasant “Father,” signalling his exit. Castiel nodded back and turned back to contemplating Sam and Dean as the front door clicked shut.

Sam was awake. 

He slowly disentangled himself from Dean, who was still passed out cold, and made his way to the kitchen. Instead of taking Bobby’s chair, he stood, arms crossed, face hard. Using every inch of his height to tower over Castiel.

“What Bobby said,” he grunted. Then the hardness melted from his eyes and he seemed younger, almost afraid. “But you’ll help Dean, right?”

“Of course.”

Sam nodded to himself, raking a hand through his hair. “Okay, good.” He finally sat down. “Because he doesn’t have epilepsy. I’ve read everything about that and none of this matches up unless you stretch it.”

“So you’re willing to believe it might be supernatural instead?”

Sam debated something for a minute. “Father, when I was a kid, I prayed every day. For my brother and dad to come home alright, for the next foster home to be better than the last. Nothing happened,” he said bitterly. “I stopped praying before we got to Bobby. I’d say he was a godsend, but I don’t believe in God like I used to. I can’t even try again. But…” And this seemed to pain him. “I can consider there might be  _ something  _ out there if it means helping my brother. That maybe you can do something. I would do anything for him.”

“You trust means a lot to me,” Castiel said honestly. “I can give you my word that I’ll do everything to help your brother.”

Silently, Sam nodded, eyelids a little red. He wiped his eyes quickly, trying to hide behind his hand, and stood up.

“Bye, Father.” 

He made it to the door and turned around, one last thought on his tongue. “I’m praying today that I’m not making a mistake.”

Then Castiel was alone.

Quietly, so as not to disturb Dean, Castiel made his way to the phone, pulling the developed photos out of an inner pocket. He adjusted the phone against his shoulder when the call connected so that he could flip through the photos on the countertop. 

Gabriel hardly got through his name before Castiel was talking. 

“Brother, you got the photographs I faxed?”

“Hello to you too, Cassie,” Gabriel grumbled without any venom. “I did, and before you ask, yes, I have them translated. I’m just that amazing.”

Castiel let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. So it wasn’t gibberish. “What did you find?”

“Well your good friend DW seems to be fluent in both written and spoken Aramaic, because that’s the language in the photos. It’s the same message as before…” 

“‘ _ The kingdom of God is inside you and all around you, not in mansions of wood and stone. Split a piece of wood and I am there. Lift a stone and you will find me _ .’” Castiel recited it from heart. He’d been puzzling over the hastily-written note for days. “Nothing new?”

“Nope. Are you ever going to tell me exactly what I’m helping you do? It’s nothing illegal, is it?”

“At least not by American laws.”

“My little Cassie, all grown up and committing crimes.”

“Gabriel, it’s really nothing like that. Is your line still secure?”

Gabriel huffed. “Don’t insult me. I check every day.”

Castiel nodded to himself. “I propose an exchange. You tell me why you need a secure line.”

“That’s a pretty heavy deal.” Gabriel’s voice was still light, but Castiel could feel the warning. “I’m not sure I can tell you that.”

“Gabriel,” Castiel pleaded.

A heavy sigh. “You have to swear to never tell another soul. Seal of Confession swear.”

“That’s very grave,” Castiel said.

“Well, mine is a grave matter.”

“Alright,” Castiel agreed. He was already going behind the Cardinal’s back. “I swear.”

“You first.”

“It’s as I’ve said, the subject is experiencing the stigmata with unusual additional wounds. DW—Dean Winchester, he’s a mechanic in New York City—he’s an atheist, not even raised Catholic. He produces these cryptic messages… Sometimes it seems like he’s someone else. He called himself a ‘messenger.’ I’m not supposed to be helping him, but…”

“Not that you don’t give every case a hundred percent, but you seem more invested in this than usual.”

Castiel closed his eyes in resignation. “Is that how I come off?”

“Like a love-struck highschooler.”

His cheeks grew hot. “Gabriel, you know I’ve struggled… with a lot of things. Dean is… He’s…”

“You like him,” Gabriel stated. “You  _ like like _ him.”

“Yes.”

Gabriel was carefully silent for a few seconds. Castiel imagined he was preparing a speech, getting ready to tell him to go to confession and pray away his unclean thoughts. They had spoken about this before, about how Castiel wasn’t straight like he should be, and Gabriel had always been understanding and lenient. But Castiel figured one day he had to put his foot down, for Castiel’s sake.

Instead, Gabriel said, “Alright. Then you really can’t let this end badly.”

Castiel frowned. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Of course not,” Gabriel chuckled. “Listen, Cassie, don’t worry about liking the guy. It’ll all work out.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“When aren’t I? My turn.” Gabriel sighed into the handset, sending light static down the line. “The Gospel Commission was shut down.”

“What?” Castiel gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles white. “The Gospel Commission is one of the most important bodies in the Church.” It ensured that Catholics were up to date with the latest academic and liturgical interpretation of newly uncovered texts. It was how they decided whether the rantings of a thousand year old scroll were legitimate or false witness to Christ. It kept the Church on track.

“I know,” Gabriel said, sounding legitimately dead inside. That was his life’s work.

“What about the texts? Those pages you were working on?”

“I’m still carrying out the Commission's mission, Castiel. A few of us are. We’re still translating, only we’re doing it together instead of apart this time.”

“What’s the use of that? No one will see your work.”

Gabriel’s voice cut like a flaming sword. “They will see it. If they think I’m going to stop sharing God’s word with the world, they’ve got another thing coming.”

“Who shut you down? The Pope? There’s no way he would do such a thing.” But there was also no one else Castiel thought would have the authority or good reason to do so.

“No, it was our Cardinal.”

“Bartholomew?”

“Zachariah’s good old farty Barty.”

“Gabriel.”

“Castiel,  _ he shut us down _ . He’s  _ silencing  _ us! We were translating those Syrian texts. He must have seen something he didn’t like. He—”

Abrupt silence.

“Gabriel?”

“Cassie.” Quiet, not like a stage whisper, like a real whisper. Harsh and fearful and determined. “I didn’t want to involve you in this but it looks like you’re wrapped up in it anyway. We were translating just what your subject is producing. It’s the same form of Aramaic, from the same region and the same era. The phrasing reminds me of some of the thought units I’ve translated so far. It’s how I could translate it for you over the phone, I’ve already seen it before. I don’t know what’s happening, but Castiel, be careful. Something is going on.

“I know I told you I check for bugs every day, but I won’t even say this over the phone. I need to be away from the Vatican for awhile, expect me.”

“Alright.”

“I’ve been spotted. Uriel. Until next time, brother.” 

The line died.

Castiel lowered the handset from his ear, staring at the cream colored plastic. That explained Gabriel’s strange behavior of late. But it brought a whole new dimension to his investigation. Cardinals Zachariah and Bartholomew were partners in crime, as it were. Good friends. It could be no coincidence that Bartholomew and Zachariah acted shifty at the same time. It was like Gabriel said, something was going on.

But… The Cardinals were the Church. Their position wasn’t granted lightly, and neither did they share everything they knew with their subordinates. Surely there were reasons for their actions.

But shutting down the Gospel Commission? A core Church body? Something so central to universal Catholic dogma?

Then… Belo Quinto. Had that reassignment been intentional? A solid block of stone weeping blood was nothing to scoff at, but Zachariah had been so flippant about it, so certain it was fake despite all preliminary evidence indicating otherwise. He’d taken it from Castiel, not as permanently as Bartholomew had taken the Gospel Commission from Gabriel, but just as strangely.

If Gabriel was doing as he said, translating the classified texts in secret with plans to release them into the world somehow, he risked excommunication. He was defying a higher order, which while delivered by his Cardinal, could have come from somewhere as high as the Holy See. 

Was his mission worth that?

Of course. 

Of course it was. 

Anything for the people they were responsible for. 

Gabriel had always been under more pressure than Castiel. Pressure to deliver accurate, modern interpretations of texts that would deeply affect the lives of every person in the Church if they were deemed appropriately canonical. He shared the Word, straight from the hands of prophets and apostles, second in line from God Himself. Gabriel knew his responsibility and while he was at times irreverent and asinine, he wouldn’t shirk it for anything.

Except maybe good chocolate. Castiel’s lips twitched at the memory of Gabriel dropping his work for Castiel’s gift from Brazil.

If even Gabriel could find it in himself to risk losing all but his mortal life to do his duty, Castiel supposed there was no excuse for him.

He’d already promised to help Dean, to figure out what was going on. It was his duty. His responsibility.

There was one wound left—the spear. Dean may have survived the other wounds, but a direct hit to his chest would be devastating.

He couldn’t imagine the world without Dean’s particular brand of stubbornness and pride. Couldn’t imagine his life without his sometimes incomprehensible humor.

Couldn’t imagine himself without Dean.

Castiel finally hung up the phone and made his way back to his chair at Dean’s bedside. He was still asleep, which made sense, given the sun had long gone down and Castiel should probably be asleep as well, given he had been shirking rest to deal with Dean’s condition.

Rain pitter-pattered against the apartment’s wall of windows. It was never truly dark in New York City, the light from the windows and rooftops of nearby towers made the raindrops glow on the glass. The glow seeped across Dean’s face where it was turned on its side, highlighting his cheek and brow and the arch of his nose with a blueish tint. Beautifully staged like a film still, handsome actor and all. Under the rain, there was the constant sound of traffic outside, a rushing punctuated by the occasional blast of a horn. New York never sleeps.

Dean was sleeping peacefully, however. Completely oblivious to the noise and light. Castiel wasn’t sure he could sleep in that. His apartment in Vatican City was nearly silent at night, and the apartment in Father Samandriel’s church was cocooned in noise-cancelling thick stone walls. Here in Dean’s apartment, he was directly in the midst of all the teeming humanity and chaos of a large city. A tiny spot of white chalk on a blackboard.

The knees of Castiel’s pants had stiffened with Dean’s blood. He was certain there were a few specks on his coat as well. He should get up, go to the church, and change. Soak his clothes to make sure the blood didn’t set. There was a minute element of horror that it was Dean’s blood, as well. The part of Dean that kept him alive drained out of his body, soaked up by Castiel’s uniform.

Ostensibly drained out of him by God.

There had to be a reason. There must be.

Miracles had purposes. They were not spontaneous events, God was never random, always intentional in His plan for humanity. Biblically, miracles occurred to display God’s supremacy over idols, most often to convert the faithless. In an Aramaic account from the Book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar threw three faithful Jews into a furnace when they refused to worship his idol, and when they came out unharmed by the fire, the king declared Yahweh all-powerful.

Was God trying to convert someone? Convert who? Dean had become more lenient in his atheism, but showed no signs of truly proclaiming faith. Crucifying him was perhaps not the best way to introduce him to a loving God.

Dean’s family was likewise unimpressed. That left Castiel, the only other person invested in this case. But he was already Catholic, already saved. Besides, it seemed arrogant and cruel to inflict such suffering on an innocent man just to make it about Castiel.

It mustn’t be about converting someone.

Castiel watched Dean sleep. His chest rose and fell in gentle, peaceful breaths. One arm was above his head, the other over the covers, making the bandages wrapped around his wrists and head clear in the darkness. They were red. He would need to change them soon. 

Dean was his responsibility, but it was more than that. Castiel couldn’t see him die, wouldn’t be able to stand it. Just seeing him in pain struck him somewhere deep and made him bleed in sympathy.

He  _ loved  _ Dean in those ways he wasn’t supposed to love anyone, much less another man.

Swiping a hand through his hair, Castiel bowed his head not to pray, but to process the thought. He was admitting it. And that was most important, being truthful to himself and God, just like confession.

Thing was, while Castiel had hoped that swearing celibacy would protect him, he didn’t really think his attraction was a sin. He’d long ago accepted that was just the way he was, and something so innate, so based in love, could never be an offense to God. That wasn’t the official company line, the Vatican had a very hard stance on homosexuality, but he wasn’t about blind faith.

Dean had to make it.

Castiel should sleep.


	8. Lead us not into temptation

The bedside clock beeped to announce 12:00 AM.

Castiel jerked awake from a dream about falling to find the covers of the bed in front of him thrown back. Empty. 

Blinking the vertigo away, he followed the line of light across the floor to the cracked door of the bathroom. That must be Dean.

He didn’t mean to nod off, especially not sitting. There was an awful stabbing soreness in his neck.

The air was heavy, weighing his shoulders into slumps when he rose from the chair with a groan. He ached  _ everywhere _ . Sleep hadn’t been refreshing at all. And he had this feeling in his chest, a sense of foreboding. The vertigo from his dream hadn’t worn off, it felt like there was a chasm before him and he was going to fall endlessly if he took one step.

He took that step and Dean emerged from the bathroom.

The first thing Castiel noticed was that the bandages were gone. The cuts on Dean’s forehead and the stitches in his wrists and wounds in his feet were plainly visible. The bleeding had stopped for now. Dean was still dressed in a soft pair of sweatpants and a form-fitting T-shirt, which hiked up slightly where the waistband of the sweats sagged so that Castiel had a clear view of a sliver of the tan skin of his hip and stomach.

Castiel ripped his gaze away, thoughts going a million miles a minute as he tried to sort through the jumble of desire and shock. Sure, he’d admitted he was attracted to Dean, but having it waved under his nose immediately after was overwhelming. What was he supposed to do?

Dean’s gaze didn’t help matters. His face was sleep-soft, yet his intent seemed clear as day. He took a couple steps towards Castiel, who met him in the middle.

“Dean,” Castiel finally said, relieved that none of his turmoil could be heard in his voice. “You should re-bandage your wounds. Do you need assistance?”

Without thinking, Castiel brushed his fingers against Dean’s temple, to feel out the cuts, worry about the wounds momentarily overriding everything else. Dean was warm and his skin was still slightly tacky from being washed. The cuts in his forehead didn’t look scabbed, they were still fresh and red and angry, but they weren’t bleeding. That was important.

Maybe his hand lingered a little too long.

Warm breath fluttered across the heel of his hand when Dean turned his face into Castiel’s palm. He looked up through his eyelashes, lids low, and Castiel finally understood the term ‘bedroom eyes.’ Time halted, Castiel was caught in that burning gaze. He lowered his hand and realized his mouth was open to speak but nothing was coming out.

“Dean?” he managed. 

Dean pressed forward so Castiel could feel every line of his body, little thrills tingling through his skin where they connected. Somehow, Dean got a knee between his thighs. He was very warm. Hot. Burning, almost. Dean curled his hands into Castiel’s lapels to pull him tight against his chest.

The floor dropped out from beneath him and Castiel stumbled backward a step, still in Dean’s grip. Dean’s face was very close to his. Castiel had been told many times that he had a tenuous grasp on personal space at best, but what Dean was doing was unmistakably not a misunderstanding. Breath puffed across his neck where Dean’s nose was. Castiel shivered.

“I can’t—”

But this was what he wanted, what he’d just admitted to himself.

Castiel went ramrod straight when Dean began mouthing at his neck. His brain short-circuited, spluttering a few sparks, and completely abandoned him. The hairs on his neck stood up and when Dean scraped his teeth over his throat, he choked on his own tongue.

“I really wish you weren’t wearing that uniform right now,” Dean murmured. 

Okay, Dean was asking for things neither of them could have. Castiel placed his palms on Dean’s shoulders in a light push, desperate to regain the situation, then shoved him away when Dean held fast. 

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do it. 

Dean took a few steps back instead of stumbling like he should have, eyes still pinning Castiel. He was radiating a smothering, oppressive energy. Or maybe Castiel was just suffocating under the weight of his conflict. 

Of course he wanted Dean. Of course. But he couldn’t.

He was a priest. He was a representative of the Vatican. He had to maintain his vows… 

Dean felt amazing.

He shouldn’t have even let Dean get so close, physically or otherwise. The— the touching, the neck thing. Much too intimate. Completely unbecoming. He shouldn’t be falling for his subjects. It clouded the investigation, knocked him out of his position.

“I see the way you look at me,” Dean said. He placed a hand on Castiel’s shoulder, sliding down until he could hold his hand in a gentle, loving grip. In a sweet, comforting voice, he said, “It’s okay, Cas. It’s okay.”

Castiel yanked his hand away, because if he didn’t do this by force, he might just fall into Dean and take what he was offering. His acceptance and forgiveness and care. He put space between them, trying and failing to regain control of his pulse while Dean looked at him like he was everything he ever needed.

“It’s the uniform, right? If you weren’t in it, this wouldn’t be an issue.” Dean took careful, determined steps forward.

Castiel held out his hands to stop the advance, eyes wide. 

“It’s got nothing to do with the uniform,” Castiel lied. “Dean, I don’t—”

Dean reached out to push and Castiel flew across the room, head cracking against the dark window on the other side of the studio in a shower of blinding stars.

Heavy rain splattered against the glass behind Castiel as he slumped to the ground. Stunned for a moment, Castiel’s brain struggled to catch up. Dean wasn’t that strong. No one was strong enough to just push someone completely across a room.

Thunder boomed and in a flash of lightning, Dean had Castiel by the lapels of his coat and shoved against the window. Another stroke of lightning momentarily lit the apartment, throwing everything into clear white contrast, and Dean’s face was curled into a rictus of rage.

“Like touching a man would kill you,” Dean sneered. “That’s why you became a priest. It has nothing to do with your convenient little stories about holes and compassion!”

No, this wasn’t Dean.

He had a moment to thank God that Dean hadn’t actually been making aggressive advances before whoever was using Dean’s body threw him to the side. This time, Castiel smacked into the wall of Aramaic in the living room.

Dazed, the words came unbidden to his mind.  _ The kingdom of God is inside you and all around you, not in mansions of wood and stone. Split a piece of wood and I am there. Lift a stone and you will find me _ .

Dean stalked after Castiel, radiating preternatural power that tossed magazines at his feet and pushed furniture away, and Castiel couldn’t mistake for one minute that this being could kill him. He struggled to reclaim the breath knocked out of his lungs.

“Are you…” he puffed. “Are you the messenger?”

“The messenger is not important,” Dean said, eerily calm as he crouched before Castiel. His voice grew in volume, like a cacophonous crowd, as he continued. “None of it is important! You slimy bureaucrats, you hypocritical  _ heretics! _ ” 

He threw Castiel like he was light as paper. Fortunately, this time Castiel crashed into the massive bed, landing hard on the springs with the air punched out of him again. Everything was fuzzy and growing further and further away. The blows to the head and lack of oxygen were starting to get to him. 

Dean was still shouting.

“... _ your obsession with celibacy and sexual purity and hierarchy over the welfare of nations! You make idols of yourselves and palaces over the graves of laity you ignore! _ ”

Castiel finally managed to sit up. The lights flared for a split second, illuminating an overturned apartment, furniture scattered and doors blown open, reflected in the pits of Dean’s eyes, then the bulbs burst with one resounding snap, plunging them back into the half-darkness of a New York night. 

Lightning?

Dean threw out a hand and another chair flew into the wall.

No, it was only Dean.

Whatever was in Dean was like the storm, loud and destructive and striking at random. Something dark dripped from Dean’s eye, flashing on his face with each burst of lightning, and Castiel worried that he’d begun to bleed internally somehow. But Dean was still upright, all that rage honed in on Castiel.

No, aimed at the Church through Castiel.

A slight sound, just a tiny whoosh of parting air, was all the warning Castiel got before a kitchen knife buried itself inches from his torso. A second followed, pinning the shoulder of his jacket to the mattress.

“Stop this!” he shouted back at Dean, who hadn’t paused in his heated tirade. “This isn’t right!”

Dean stood over Castiel where he struggled to pull the knife out. “What’s right is the truth, Father Castiel. You impede the truth.”

“No, I— I care about the truth as well. I’ve been—”

“This is the truth!” Dean roared. He ripped the knife out of the mattress and Castiel flinched, imagining all the ways it was going to cleave his flesh apart. But Dean raised the knife to his own body instead and Castiel went cold.

“What are you doing—”

Dean stabbed into his inner arm and dragged the blade through his flesh inch by agonizing inch. The skin tore and blood welled up. Castiel cringed away, unable to watch Dean hurt himself.

“This is the blood of Christ,” Dean said in an ugly, bubbling tone, mirroring the blood pouring from his wounds. “This is He!”

Lightning flashed. He dropped the knife in Castiel’s lap, dripping everywhere, and fell face-first onto his chest. Instinctively, Castiel gripped him in a desperate hug, like he could protect him from something invisible and internal. Then he rolled Dean off himself and scrambled to his feet, throwing the knife to the floor, completely forgotten.

He had to staunch the bleeding. Had to stabilize Dean before he burned up. There weren’t any thoughts about making sure the episode was over. This wasn’t about his own safety. This was about Dean.

Dean had to make it.

He bunched blankets over Dean’s arm, but the bleeding had already stopped from all wounds and now the blood was only drying on his skin and clothes. There was no way that blood would clot so fast from such a deep wound, but Castiel figured nothing about this situation was normal. He put a finger to Dean’s neck, relieved to find a strong pulse. Dean’s eyes were closed and his temperature was back to normal. 

It was over.

“Oh, Dean…” Castiel said. He could feel it. He was already mourning.

This would kill him before long.

Scissors, medical tape, and fresh gauze were already at Dean’s bedside. Castiel wiped off what he could with a wet towel and wrapped Dean literally head to toe in bandages, infinitely careful not to jostle him. It was a depressingly familiar routine now. Castiel wondered how Father Samandriel could stand it.

While he was at it, unable to suppress his scientist side, he swabbed up some of the dark substance drying in the creases of Dean’s eyes.

Carefully lying Dean back in bed, he pulled the covers over him and sat at his side again. Thunder rumbled outside, further away now. His head nodded with pain and exhaustion. 

How many times would he do this before Dean didn’t wake up again? 

He snapped his head up when a tentative hand brushed his knee. Dean peered through heavy eyelids, gaze beseeching. 

“Please,” he said in a hoarse whisper that also said  _ I’m sorry _ and  _ help me _ .

Neither wanted to be alone.

Castiel hesitated only a moment. He draped his bloodstained coat over the chair and crawled onto the bed, Dean under the covers and he above them. Snatching the rosary off the nightstand, he wrapped it around his hand like a comforting childhood plush toy and held it against his chest, right above where he could feel his rapidly beating heart. He curled on his side, watching as Dean’s eyes slid shut again. 

So tentatively he was practically in slow motion, Castiel traced the pads of his fingers over Dean’s cheek. Dean hummed, rolling closer to Castiel, and that was all the invitation he needed. With both hands, he gently cupped Dean’s face, rosary forgotten between them. 

Dean played at being tough and independent, but when he hurt, when he bled, anyone could see his fragile, beautiful soul. His strength, his ability to weather the storm was no act, but this display of vulnerability and trust was so sacred.

Castiel had prayed and ministered all his life and he’d never felt a moment as holy as this.

In the low light, Dean almost looked healthy and normal. But Castiel could feel as he stroked the planes of his face where he had recently washed away blood, sweat, and tears. While before Dean had been too hot, now he was cold. 

Castiel had to. 

He pulled Dean closer, curled against him, and swallowed a whine of relief when Dean bumped their foreheads together. It was so right. They fit together like it was divinely ordained.

Dean’s eyes were still closed, but his mouth was curled with a hint of contentment. For a second, a tongue parted his lips, leaving them shiny and wet. Castiel couldn’t look away.

_ I could kiss him.  _

_ We could have this always _ .

Suddenly years of training and shame evaporated and Castiel wasn’t a priest or a scientist or his parents’ obedient child. He was just a person who was hoping, wishing, and praying to God that the one he loved would let him stay forever, or however long he had left.

Dean settled as he slipped into unconsciousness and Castiel’s heart sighed. Expectations set back in.

Let this be tonight. There would be a tomorrow. 

By God’s grace, Castiel would make sure there was a tomorrow for Dean.

Under the sound of the traffic and faraway thunder, Castiel could hear Dean’s deep even breathing. Finally, he allowed the world to recede and he fell into sleep, breathing at Dean’s pace. He settled a hand on Dean’s waist, the other stroking the curve of his cheek until he knew no more.

For now, they were alive.

 

* * *

 

It was that part of morning where even New York seemed to lull. The storm was over, the traffic quieter. The bedside clock beeped. Dean could almost hear his body protest when he rolled over to see the display. 

2 AM.

His nerves were fried, just lifting a hand to check his bandages hurt, like he was raising a dead limb. It was like he’d just recovered from a fever, he was clammy and burned out and weak. The hand shook as he covered his face.

This was too much for him.

Dean didn’t remember much, but there were flashes, like strikes of lightning in his head. Pictures of Castiel looking up at him fearfully. Whiffs of unbridled rage.

It had all happened so fast. One minute Dean was falling asleep, the next he was shouting in Castiel’s face. Then he was in bed, alone, in a pit of dread and guilt, hoping against hope, but knowing that this was no nightmare.

He rolled over again to face the priest. Castiel was still and silent, sleeping like the dead. The faint circles under his eyes were joined by a purpling bruise on his temple. Dean knew there were more where he couldn’t see them. 

They were only inches from each other, separated by the blankets. Dean could feel Castiel’s fluttering breath on his nose. He bit his lip.

How could Castiel stand to sleep so close to the one that hurt him?

That was another thing he remembered. Just a flash of the panic and pain on Castiel’s face. 

“ _ Dean, I don’t _ —”

Castiel didn’t love him. He was only doing what he thought was right. He was a priest, he’d sworn himself to something higher. Something more important.

Dean was only human. He was no match for God. He knew who won in this scenario. Who was already winning.

A floorboard creaked. He whipped around to find three people standing in his kitchen, watching them. One of them was Father Samandriel, who wrung his hands behind two men in black coats. They seemed to emerge from the darkness, pale faces only just illuminated by the wan light of the apartment.

“What the hell…?” Dean said.

“T-the Cardinal insisted on seeing you,” Father Samandriel explained, and he looked more than a little like he’d shat himself. Whatever the Cardinal had said to him had been very convincing. Dean kinda had to feel bad for the kid.

“How did you get in here?”

“Your front door was open,” the bald one drawled. He swept his gaze across Dean, appraising him, then focused behind him with a raised eyebrow. Dean glanced at the focus of his sightline and noticed Castiel cuddled up beside him.

That couldn’t look good at all.

“Look, I’m all for the Sith look you guys got going on here, but don’t do comic-con in my apartment. I’ve kind of had a rough night.”

“Indeed, I can see that,” baldy said dryly, and Dean’s hackles raised, knowing that was a jab at Castiel.

With all the strength he had left in his voice Dean demanded, “Leave.”

“Dean Winchester,” baldy said in the sort of voice reserved for troublesome children. “We’re here to help you and… Father Castiel. I’m his superior, Cardinal Zachariah.”

“Is that supposed to awe me?”

“I hear you’re not the type to be awed,” Zachariah replied pleasantly. “Wake the good Father for me if you will.”

Dean glared to let the man know he wasn’t doing this because he’d been told to and gently shook Castiel.

“Cas,” he whispered softly. 

Castiel squeezed his eyes like he didn’t want to wake up. With his hair stuck up in every direction, the total opposite of his normally immaculate appearance, and the way he was curled toward Dean, Castiel was the picture of adorable. Dean couldn’t help a fond smile.

Zachariah cleared his throat. The smile dropped off Dean’s face.

“Cas, buddy.” Dean shook him again. 

This time, Castiel opened his eyes with a couple bleary blinks. When he looked at Dean, the air was sucked out of him. The man he had compared to stone was gorgeous and smiling and completely lax at Dean’s side in his bed. He was the subject of a soft-focus painting, one of those golden-ratio angels—

“Castiel!” Zachariah shouted from somewhere behind and Dean finally understood the urge to strangle someone, especially when Castiel shot up in bed, still dishevelled and confused from sleep, staring at the Cardinal uncomprehendingly. The wide eyes and open mouth would have earned a chuckle from Dean if the situation were different.

“Dean,” he said in a voice with more gravel than usual, and for a G-rated metaphor, that kinda went straight to the pit of Dean’s stomach. “This is a dream?”

“It’s really not,” Dean grumbled.

“Father,” Zachariah cut in. “So glad to see you awake and attending to your duties. How exactly is the investigation going?”

Dean had never heard Castiel grapple with words before, but he did now. “Um… Well. T-the subject is experiencing the stigmata, I’ve confirmed. Father Samandriel’s account was legitimate. The, uh, the subject is… deteriorating, however. I—”

Zachariah waved a hand like he was swatting at a particularly acrobatic fly. “Castiel, don’t give me a full report now. Save that for the archdiocese.”

“The archdiocese?” Castiel and Dean exchanged a glance, and Castiel’s eyes widened when he realized his position. So quick it was practically teleportation, Castiel was off the bed and standing stiffly between Dean and Zachariah, like the world’s most pathetic shield. “Cardinal, you don’t mean that—”

“I’m sorry you’ve had to bunk in such squalor, if I had realized the neighborhood you were headed for, I would have had the archdiocese house you initially.”

Castiel was frowning, three parts confused and one part angry. “Father Samandriel’s neighborhood is perfectly—”

“It’s okay, Father Castiel,” Samandriel said quietly behind Zachariah, eyes on the floor.

The hard line of Castiel’s shoulders said it was not okay, but Zachariah was either oblivious to his impact or simply ignoring it, because he continued in a beezy tone.

“We have a lot to debrief on. Come at once, we have transportation outside.”

“You’re taking us to the archdiocese?”

“Yes. Castiel, we’re here to help you.”

“Help me…?”

Zachariah made an unattractive noise that was a mix between the whinny of a frustrated horse and the groan of a man who had given up on everything. “Castiel, I’m your superior, I’m supposed to be assisting you with this case. If you hadn’t disappeared I would have been supporting you. I came here myself to make sure you’re getting what you need. It’s a good thing I did because clearly you haven’t been getting that.”

“But Dean’s not Catholic.”

“Come now, Castiel, do you really think I’m cruel enough to ignore the faithless like that?”

Castiel’s silence was all the confirmation he needed.

“You didn’t even file for permission, I couldn’t even say yes.”

Now Castiel seemed uncertain. His posture slumped. “You’re correct, I didn’t come to you about this.” He turned to Dean, and Dean could see desperation and determination on his face. “We’ll come with you.”

“You sure about this?” Dean asked once Castiel approached.

“You heard him. He’s my superior. He’s the Church. I have to trust it. I have to trust him.” Castiel lowered his gaze. “I have to help you, Dean.”

Dean tried to catch his eyes again, to see his thoughts, but Castiel avoided him now. Castiel stuck out his arm and helped Dean into a wobbly stand. Father Samandriel crept over to them and took Dean’s other arm.

Together, they followed Zachariah.


	9. But deliver us from evil

Castiel drove Dean and Samandriel in the Continental.

Samandriel was uncharacteristically silent during the drive. They followed the Cardinal’s car out of the city limits and into one of the surrounding counties. When asked, Samandriel said they were headed for one of the archdiocese’s properties in Westchester, the historical Filoli Mansion, now an office and apartment building operated by local Sisters.

“It’s a very nice place, sometimes I go for conferences and meetings with the bishop…” He didn’t sound excited about going this time.

They passed through a well-kept garden, gleaming with the recent nighttime showers, and pulled into the horseshoe driveway of a large Georgian-style estate. When they stepped out of the cars, the Cardinal halted Samandriel with a hand on his shoulder.

“We no longer require your assistance, Father Samandriel. Uriel will escort you back to your home.”

Samandriel looked between Dean, Castiel, and the Cardinal. Castiel tried to make a reassuring face and assumed he missed the mark when Samandriel only looked more concerned. The young Father climbed into the Cardinal’s car anyway.

“Just take me back to the church, I have duties to attend to,” Samandriel said as they pulled away.

The inside was just as ornate as the outside. Castiel helped Dean settle into one of the apartment rooms near the center of the building. A few Sisters puttered around the room, righting things and leaving towels and glancing surreptitiously at them when they thought Castiel wasn’t looking. He resisted the urge to snap at them. They were only curious.

Dean reclined on the four-poster bed, looking around the room in awe. “This is too fancy for me, I feel like I’ll get dog shit on the carpet somehow, and I don’t even have a dog.”

“I’m sure the Sisters can keep up with anything you do to this room, even dog shit.”

Dean barked a weak laugh. “Father Castiel? Swearing? Seems wrong, somehow.”

“I do that, believe it or not.”

Dean gave him a drowsy smile that was far too fond. Castiel looked away. He could feel Dean’s questioning gaze on his back. A hand covered his where he propped himself up on the bed. Castiel retracted it, wracked with guilt at the confusion on Dean’s face.

“Listen, Dean…” He raked a hand through his hair, standing to put some distance between them. “I have been less than professional during this investigation and I apologize for that. I shouldn’t have been sleeping in your… your apartment.” He couldn’t say _bed_. He couldn’t.

“You know I don’t really care about _professional_ —”

“Well I do, Dean,” Castiel said firmly. “It’s not fair to you or me if I don’t.”

Castiel couldn’t watch as Dean’s face cycled through heartbreak and resignation. It seemed to settle on the Dean he’d met in that diner, the one who was desperate for answers and only steps away from anger.

“Alright,” was all Dean said. He sat up and fished in the pockets of his sweatpants, emerging with the black rosary. Without looking at Castiel, he tossed it on a dresser next to the bed, then rolled over and closed his eyes, back to Castiel.

Castiel bit his lip, longing to reach out, to lie there with him, to apologize and tell him he didn’t mean any of it.

But it wasn’t right.

So Castiel turned around and shut the door behind himself.

 

* * *

 

The Cardinal was transformed. He paced around Castiel, who sat ramrod straight in a chair in front of the Cardinal’s temporary desk. Across the desk were pictures of Dean’s wall, covered in Aramaic. The exact pictures he had faxed to Gabriel.

“Cardinal, sir. How did you get these?”

Uriel, who had been silent behind Castiel, murmured something in the Cardinal’s ear. The Cardinal finally stopped behind the desk, hands clasped behind his back. He looked mad, to put it lightly. Maybe slightly off his rocker. Something about this situation was stressing him to the extreme.

“Gabriel… gave them up. Your friend was playing a very dangerous game, keeping things from us. You as well, Castiel.” He stabbed a photo. “Who else has seen these?”

“No one,” Castiel said truthfully. “Only you, I, Gabriel, and Dean.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“No one.”

“What does it mean?”

Now Castiel found his tongue wouldn’t cooperate. Instead of the truth, he said, “Only Gabriel knew.”

The Cardinal dragged a hand down his haggard face. “Castiel, you are off this case. You need to return to the Vatican and rest, you must be exhausted.”

“No,” Castiel was shocked to hear himself say. “I will not be removed from this case. I have rapport with Dean, it would be difficult for anyone else to establish the same. You _need_ me.”

“Castiel—!”

“Cardinal, I—”

“You were already going off the rails: not reporting to me, helping an _atheist_ without my consent. But I didn’t expect to find you in bed with him.” The disgust in his voice tightened the noose around Castiel’s heart. “I know you have struggled with your attraction, but it seems like it is taking you over. Is that why you’re so obsessed with this case? Because of Dean Winchester?”

Castiel wanted to come back with the stereotypical “it’s not what it looks like” remark, but it kind of was what it looked like. But what it looked like was irrelevant. They had to help Dean.

“You’ve defied the Church, Castiel. I’ll have to think on your involvement with the case and the Congregation.”

“But you’ll help Dean.”

“I will make sure this situation is resolved.”

Castiel fought the urge to hang his head. The yoke of the Cardinal’s power over him settled heavy around his neck.

“Thank you,” he made himself say. Then with the last embers of his courage, “Does this have something to do with the Gospel Commission?”

“I don’t know,” was the Cardinal’s prompt response. “Goodnight, Castiel.”

A Sister caught him before he made it back to Dean’s quarters.

“We have a call for you, Father. They said it was urgent.”

Castiel glanced down the hallway towards Dean’s door. It was closed, the hallway silent. Moonlight highlighted the gloss on the thick wood. The Sister watched him with soft understanding and Castiel’s face reddened. Dean would be safe here for awhile.

It was Samandriel on the phone.

“There’s someone here for you.”

“Did they give a name?”

“He said…” His hesitation betrayed his confusion. “He said I should call you ‘Father Obvious.’”

Castiel rolled his eyes. Gabriel.

“I’ll be right there.”

The drive was longer than he would have preferred. He was exhausted and bruised and needed to rest, the Cardinal hadn’t been lying about that. But Gabriel’s story was the missing piece of this case. The sooner he could see him, the better.

Samandriel welcomed him, equally exhausted and less bruised, and told Castiel to wait while he retrieved Gabriel. Castiel took a seat in the middle of the sanctuary. Only days ago he’d performed Dean’s first communion here, which had solved his perpetual thirst. The roughly-carved Jesus icon was difficult to look at now that he’d participated in Dean’s stigmata sufferings. He’d called the icon “inspiring” when Dean had criticized it. Now he found it just a sick reminder of what was destroying Dean.

Samandriel appeared again, supporting a hunched Gabriel. Castiel shot to his feet, leaving any annoyance with Gabriel behind. Gabriel’s face was twisted in pain and he was too pale. One arm was in Samandriel’s hands and the other was clutched protectively against his side.

Castiel hurried down the aisle and grabbed Gabriel’s free arm, offering another body to support him. Gabriel settled his weight against Castiel, who used it to maneuver them into the first row of pews. Glancing between Samandriel and Gabriel, he asked, “What happened? Gabriel, you’re hurt.”

Gabriel leaned into Castiel’s side and Castiel tightened the arms around his shoulders, partly to keep him upright and partly because he was worried. A quick look at Samandriel turned up nothing, the young priest was shaking his head and wringing his hands. He had no idea.

“Thanks for pointing that out, Father Obvious, I’m sure no one could tell,” Gabriel snarked, but it was without the usual humor. He just sounded tired.

Samandriel shifted uneasily. “I got a look at it, it’s a pretty big gash in his side, but it’s mostly superficial. The bleeding has stopped. He can still get up and walk around but he needs support. It just hurts a lot.”

Gabriel cocked his head in Samandriel’s direction. “You’re Father Obvious Junior.”

Samandriel just looked puzzled and as was his apparent habit, he apologized. “Sorry.”

Gabriel waved it away. “Don’t apologize to me, you saved me a trip to the hospital. Thanks for sewing me up.” He looked to Cas. “Where’d you get yourself a priest who knows street aid in such a short amount of time?”

“It’s nothing to do with me,” Castiel said. “Father Samandriel is just resourceful and compassionate.”

“Yeah, he was pretty calm when I showed up bleeding all over the place.”

Castiel frowned severely. “How did you get here? Don’t tell me you took a flight injured like this.”

Gabriel managed a shadow of his usual grin. “Nonstop eight hours from Rome to John F. Kennedy International Airport. Some of us really are that stupid, Cassie. Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure I was passed out for most of the flight. My neighbors probably thought I was sleeping off a hangover.”

Castiel must have made a face, because Gabriel softened. “Cassie, it’s okay. I’m here, I’m alive. Considering how this has been going, I think that’s a win for us.”

It was a relief to know that Gabriel was relatively okay. Castiel let his gaze fall. Gabriel was wearing a pair of worn tennis shoes and frayed jeans, just like what Dean had told him looked “sweet.” He wasn’t in his uniform, not even clericals, only inconspicuous street clothes. Even after all their years together, Castiel didn’t think he’d seen Gabriel this dressed-down. It made him seem more vulnerable. Just an individual fighting a many-faced entity.

He gave Gabriel another squeeze. “Tell me what happened.”

“So bossy,” Gabriel mumbled, but the undertone was fond. “You want to know everything? From the top?”

“Everything.”

“Well, I guess I’m found out now. No bugs, nothing to hide anymore. Better get comfy, because it’s a doozy.”

It all began with a set of texts that had been unearthed in Syria a few years ago. They were ancient, carbon-dated tenuously to the early ADs and written in a form of Middle Aramaic common during the time of Jesus Christ. So the Vatican immediately got ahold of the texts, guarding them closely. They were divided and distributed to Gabriel and his colleagues in the Gospel Commission.

It was a routine translation at first.

“I thought it might just be another Gnostic gospel. You know, the ‘secret sayings of Jesus’ and all. I’ve translated a hundred of those suckers. Nothing the Pope was ever interested in.” Gabriel wrinkled his nose. “But Zachariah and Barty started to get real interested around the halfway point.”

It began with mandated check-ins with the Cardinals personally, which had never been a requirement before. Zachariah and Bartholomew would closely review their translations. The Commission wasn’t concerned until the Cardinals sent them an official order to cease their efforts.

“It was ridiculous. The order said that the Commission would ‘find no value’ in the texts and we weren’t allowed to waste our time on them. I fought it. We all fought it. Zachariah and Bartholomew, but Zach especially, acted like we were kids having a tantrum. Just threw our arguments away.”

Castiel was uncomfortably reminded of Cardinal Zachariah confidently dismissing the case in Belo Quinto, despite Castiel’s protests and confirmed evidence.

Gabriel’s face twisted up like he was reliving every feeling. “Nobody fought as hard as Father Alamedia and Father Raziel, though. The rest of the Commission went quiet, a few of us made a pact to translate in secret anyway. Alamedia and Raziel joined us, but they wouldn’t be quiet. They thought that there might be substance to the texts, considering the carbon dating and some of what we’d already translated.”

Zachariah called them crazy and obsessed. One day he called Alamedia to his office. The Father was convinced that he had swayed the Cardinal and the Commission would be allowed to translate again, but instead he was excommunicated as a heretic. That night, he gathered his things and vanished to parts unknown, taking with him his portion of the texts.

“Father Alamedia was a good man. A holy man. Single-minded to the end. We still don’t know where he is.” Gabriel flicked a glance at Castiel, like that should mean something to him, then looked away again.

And it did sound familiar. Castiel wracked his brain. Fingers of hot sunlight, the salt of sweat on his tongue, a silent congregation. A casket holding a priest so beloved that even Mary cried…

“He was in Belo Quinto…” Castiel realized. “In Brazil, that church I investigated, the one the Cardinal took from me.”

Gabriel nodded grimly. “I read your report when Zachariah wasn’t looking.”

“Alamedia is quite dead. I saw his body in a casket. I had no idea he was from the Commission or I would have said something. Gabriel…” His voice was full of regret.

Gabriel shrugged, although it looked like it pained him. “You didn’t know, and I didn’t know until you’d already been removed from the case. Nothing could have been done about it. I’m sure the old bastard went out on his terms anyway. Nothing can get between that man and his goal.” He smiled a little, eyes distant as he relived some memory. But then it fell from his face. “Castiel, I don’t believe he’s gone, though. I think I know exactly where he is right now. He’s been with you.”

Castiel straightened in surprise. “With me?”

Gabriel tapped a wrist. “Alamedia was afflicted with the stigmata, just like your subject is. Your subject has been producing a message similar to what we’re translating. It looks like the parts Alamedia took with him. I don’t know how or why, but I think your subject Dean is possessed.”

Castiel paled. “Demons?”

“No, just a lost soul. Father Paulo Alamedia in the flesh. Or, well, in the spirit.”

“How did he know you?” Samandriel broke in. He only drew into himself a little when Gabriel and Castiel turned their focus on him. “Dean… or I guess Alamedia asked for you by name when he was in my van. How would he know who you are?”

Gabriel smirked and puffed out his chest, proud. “I spoke very often and highly of little Cassie here. It’s like he’s my own child. Alamedia knew that he investigated miracles and tried to keep the church in the 21st century. He knew Cassie gave a shit about the little guy.” A thoughtful look fell over his face. “I guess he thought you might be able to do something.”

“Well I certainly failed in that respect,” Castiel said miserably. Dean when he hadn’t been Dean, when he must have been Alamedia, had basically beat the crap out of him for being everything he seemed to hate about the Church. It was Gabriel who figured out what was going on with Dean, and Gabriel had been an ocean away the entire time.

Although Castiel had to admit he’d been distracted. It was one thing to receive the facts by report and another to be on the ground, right in the midst of it all. Keeping Dean alive had been one priority. And when he wasn’t doing that or trying to figure out what was going on, he’d been caught up in his own tangle of emotions, blushing around Dean like he brought on fever.

And without Gabriel’s side of the story, none of it would have made sense. How could a statue crying blood in Belo Quinto possibly be connected to an atheist with the stigmata in New York? How could an atheist even have the stigmata?

It was simple, Dean didn’t have the stigmata. Father Alamedia did, and he was currently inhabiting Dean, impressing his knowledge and state upon Dean’s body and mind.

Castiel breathed out and it felt like he’d been holding his breath ever since he met Dean. A knot loosened in his core. Dean didn’t have the stigmata. If Father Alamedia was removed, the stigmata would follow. They didn’t need to hope God would change his mind, they just needed an exorcism. A simple routine exorcism. He rubbed a shaky hand over his face, feeling too-light with relief.

“Anyway,” Gabriel continued. “We kept translating in secret. But Raziel being Raziel must not have been careful enough. I don’t know exactly what happened but I assume Zachariah had him killed. I know he didn’t say anything about the rest of us, we swore never to speak a word to anyone else and no one had bothered us until now.”

“Yes, what happened to _you_ , Gabriel?” Castiel said. “I’m glad to know about the Commission but you’ve been injured just recently.”

“It was Zachariah and Uriel. I made sure my office and phone weren’t bugged but they intercepted my faxes. Who taps a fax machine? That’s just dirty.”

So that’s how Zachariah had the photos of Dean’s apartment.

“I was going to leave Vatican City when they summoned me out of the blue. I was stupid and thought it was unrelated but they offered to let me join their little club and conspire alongside them. Can you imagine? Stuffy Zachariah and I getting along?” He chuckled humorlessly. “I said ‘no’ so he excommunicated me on the spot.”

Castiel’s grip tightened in shock. “Oh God, Gabriel…” Excommunication was tantamount to damnation. He would never be welcome in the Church again. He wasn’t even considered Catholic anymore. His career as a linguist, his mission to bring the word of God to the world, his home in Vatican City, and everyone he knew were gone just like that.

“It’s fine,” Gabriel said stiffly. “Even if he hadn’t, I could have never returned to the Church after all of this. Clearly some parts of it hate the truth enough to exile and kill. I can’t be a part of that. I’m pretty sure they had similar plans for me. After that, they wouldn’t let me leave the room. I think they learned their lesson with Alamedia.”

Samandriel’s eyes were wide with awe. He was still standing before them, looking a little shaken by the apparent unrest in the Vatican but also like Gabriel had just become a superhero. “How did you get away?”

“I broke through a window,” Gabriel said matter-of-factly. “That expensive furniture is good for something. It was only the second floor but I got caught on a piece of glass on the way down, hence the injury.” He flashed a grin at Samandriel, whose eyes somehow got wider. “Good thing this feisty little father has a knack for street medicine and a bad habit of letting bleeding strangers through his door.”

“ _Only_ ” the second floor?

“You have to be careful, brother,” Castiel admonished, but he gave Samandriel a thankful look. The young priest beamed, a little color in his cheeks.

“I’m as careful as I can be given the circumstances. My well-being isn’t nearly as important as the message, Cassie. Nothing is.”

It was hard to miss the similarities between what Gabriel and Alamedia had said.

“What about these texts is so compelling?” Castiel found himself asking. It was frustrating, knowing that he and Dean had been caught in something completely unrelated to them both, just two sides fighting over a book.

“I think Alamedia’s portion was the most important. His message…” Gabriel pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket and revealed the writing on Dean’s wall. The black and white picture was covered in blue pen marks, circling the junctions of lines and inserting notes on meaning. “You know the message.”

_The kingdom of God is inside you and all around you, not in mansions of wood and stone. Split a piece of wood and I am there. Lift a stone and you will find me._

“What is this place?” Gabriel gestured around them, directing Castiel’s eyes across the sanctuary. “This is a building,” he spat. “This isn’t God. This will be a heap of rubble someday. That icon?” Now they were looking at the crucified Jesus behind the altar. “All these trappings, they’re only things. The Church is just old men telling us what they think is right. It’s not God. He’s all around you, He’s inside you.”

Alamedia carving into Dean’s arm.

_This is the blood of Christ. This is He._

That was the message.

Of course. That made Dean only the messenger. Alamedia was the heretic. He didn’t care who delivered his message or how, only that it got out, even if it burned Dean out completely. He was trapped on earth until his final mission was resolved.

“These texts, what we’ve translated, they’re Jesus’s words from the Last Supper. He told his disciples his vision for the Church. He gave them a roadmap for the future. _He told us what to do_. Zachariah and his buddies hated that, because I’m pretty sure Jesus wasn’t enshrining their power. The Church as it is now—it’s wrong, Cassie.”

Anxiety churned low in Castiel’s gut. What Gabriel was saying was heresy, but Gabriel would never say something he didn’t absolutely believe. And despite his training telling him it was wrong, Castiel knew deep down that this was it. This was the truth.

Gabriel planned on changing the Church forever, but it all hinged on Alamedia and Dean and the message.

“Cassie.” Gabriel tapped Castiel’s cheek, featherlight and tender. Castiel met his gaze. Gabriel looked terrible from the pain, all pale-faced and haggard, but his face was twisted up with sorrow. “You’ve spent your life looking for God, for what life means for you. You studied chemistry, joined the priesthood, and you became an investigator. All the miracles were fake. You never found a real sign of God’s presence…” He huffed and rolled his eyes. “I must be totally out of it with pain to say something so sappy. You know that God is love, yet somehow you’ve been overlooking that. The real shock isn’t that anyone has faith, but that you’re so blind to it.”

Samandriel was carefully silent, eyebrows knit together, sensing this was something intensely personal. Castiel’s hackles raised, a little shocked by Gabriel’s forwardness. “I don’t need a lecture about my faith life from you.”

“No, Castiel. Listen to me.”

The uncharacteristic heat in Gabriel’s voice and the use of his full name was enough to kill any response. Castiel listened.

“You’ve confided in me— _often_ —about how you feel like your attraction conflicts with your faith. The Church is against it, so you deny yourself. But you have faith in God, faith in compassion and mercy and _love_. You believe in love, you stupid Disney princess. Despite everything, you love this man Dean. Your miracle is right in front of you. Screw the Church, like I said, you’re not going to find God in their rules or an icon or a cathedral. You have faith in love. There’s nothing holier than that.”

Castiel tried to reply with some well-formed denial. The anxiety in his gut spread, locking up his arm around Gabriel and tightening across his chest. The Church said it was wrong, and the Church was always right. The Church was God’s representation on earth. But Gabriel would never say something he didn’t absolutely believe. Gabriel brought the Word of God to the people. And what had Castiel told Dean when they first met?

“ _He loves you freely and without reservation, even the parts you may hate_.”

By pushing away the parts of him that were attracted to Dean, he’d been pushing away God’s greatest miracle—love. His eyelids were suddenly very wet.

His words were quiet. “You really believe that?”

“More than I’ve believed in anything.”

“But you… You’ve never said…”

“I should have said this a long time ago. I’m sorry, Cassie. I knew you were hurting but I didn’t think… Until his whole fiasco with Dean I thought maybe it just wasn’t that big of an issue. You understood the God-is-love thing, but as your friend I should have realized you thought that applied to everyone but you.”

Gabriel managed to wedge an arm behind Castiel and wrap him in a careful hug. Castiel wiped at his eyes. The thought that anyone, much less God, could accept all of him, was overwhelming.

Suddenly, his abrupt move to cut off his tentative relationship with Dean seemed like the worst decision he’d ever made. Worse than deciding to suppress himself in a misguided attempt to draw closer to the answers he’d sought since becoming a chemist. If the truest form of his faith was really love, he’d just snuffed it out like nothing.

Dean made him feel not like one part of a faceless entity, not like his parents’ obedient child, not like a cold scientist, but like a person. When they had laid in bed together nothing else had mattered except that Dean trusted him and really saw past the uniform, to Castiel himself, and Castiel had really seen Dean.

God was present where he’d thought He was most absent. Nothing had ever felt holier than the affection between himself and Dean. An outcast priest of the Vatican and a bisexual atheist from New York.

Gabriel disentangled himself from the hug with a groan, clutching his side again. “But I’m glad you’re here, Cassie. Zachariah is a lunatic, who knows what he might do if he caught up with you, he’ll stop at nothing to get his way. He killed Raziel, practically killed Alamedia, probably was going to kill me…”

Castiel’s heart stopped. Samandriel and Castiel exchanged panicked glances.

“Zachariah is here,” said Samandriel.

Gabriel closed his eyes tightly, resignation and anger on his face. “What?”

“He brought Castiel and Dean to the archdiocese. That’s where Castiel came from…”

Their conversation was far away. Castiel was hearing it as though it was echoing through a straw. He’d left Dean alone at the archdiocese, right in Zachariah’s grasp. Everything—the message, Gabriel’s last stand, Castiel’s heart… It all hinged on Dean. And someone with no qualms with doing anything he needed to get what he wanted had him.

Castiel shot to his feet and interrupted whatever Gabriel and Samandriel had been saying. “I need to go.”

Samandriel was hovering in his peripheral, only just managing to contain his insistence by shifting from foot to foot.

“I’ll help you!” he burst out without waiting for acknowledgement.

Castiel exchanged a glance with Gabriel. Samandriel was so far only minimally involved in their conspiracy against a conspiracy. Besides, he was young, he had a parish to look out for, he had so much to lose…

“Samandriel, I’m honored by your offer, but you’re needed here.” With the hopeful crayon drawings and dogged street aid. “What we’re involved in—it’s dangerous.”

“Killed at least two people,” Gabriel added helpfully.

“Right, it could get you in trouble with the archdiocese—”

“Who cares!” Samandriel said. “This affects the whole Church, right? So it affects me and my parish and my neighbors… If I have a chance to do something right, why would I sit it out? It’s part of my responsibility.”

A low chuckle started to Castiel’s left. Gabriel's eyes and smile were wide with shock and humor.

“You are the spunkiest little parish priest I have ever had the pleasure of meeting,” he said. “Cassie, can we keep this kid? I like him. He’s convinced me, he can help.”

Samandriel was already fishing in his pockets for keys. “I can drive you to the archdiocese…”

“Nope.” Gabriel rose with a grunt, face turning white when the movement agitated his wound. He braced himself on a pew and took a few deep breaths, rolling Castiel’s hand off his shoulder. “You’re going to help me.”

“I have your car.” Castiel pulled the Continental’s keys out of his pocket. “I’ll get Dean and come back here.” He took off.

“Be safe!” he heard Samandriel call after him. To Gabriel he said, “What do you need?”

“First? A drink. Then a one-way flight to Vegas.”

 

* * *

 

Dean was drifting, halfway awake and halfway asleep. There were little statues of saints on the dresser across from his bed, turned so their little painted eyes could stare at him, and the low light of the fireplace reflected off brass candlesticks and gold paint on the ornate moulding. The room was ridiculously decorated with red velvets, dark shiny wood, and delicate ornaments like the statues.

While he didn’t know exactly what an archdiocese was considered, it felt like Dean was actually asleep in a church. There was a weight to the air, a pressure he didn’t so much feel on his skin as he did in his soul. Someone was watching. He got the strangest feeling that it was coming from both inside and outside himself. Like he was the center of all attention.

Oddly, Dean was hot. It had begun when Castiel left, he had assumed that their “argument” had worked him up, but it didn’t go away. When the fire burned down to little flickers, he got some relief as the spring chill settled into the apartment. Still, it made him uncomfortable enough that he couldn’t fully fall asleep, even as exhausted as he was.

But that wasn’t all that kept him up. Every time he closed his eyes, he got a flash of Castiel’s back as he left the room, a dark figure against the faint light filtering into the hallway.

Dean supposed he shouldn’t be shocked. It’s not like people stuck around him. Not to mention that Castiel was a _priest_ and he was _right_. They shouldn’t have attempted anything at all. Dean was poison and Castiel… Castiel deserved better.

Thoughts about Castiel being straight had evaporated as they spent more time together and shared a lot more touch and meaningful looks than was considered strictly heterosexual. But at the end of the day, no matter that, he was still a priest promised to something higher. Dean didn’t have any right to tempt him away from that.

None of that logic helped the ache in his heart. He’d shared his bed with this guy, to Dean that was tantamount to declaring someone family. And it had been an amazing experience, falling asleep in the arms of someone he knew cared about him unconditionally. Castiel had seen all the festering parts of him and hadn’t flinched, just softly touched him and promised to stay by his side. Like Dean was precious or something.

He rubbed a wrist, skin catching on the texture of the bandages.

Like he was holy.

Castiel had called him that before, when they first met. Dean hadn’t believed him. Even now, he was skeptical. But he could believe that maybe to Castiel, he was something more than a man. It wasn’t like he gave a shit what God thought about his worthiness anyway.

He just wanted to be worthy enough for Cas.

But he wasn’t.

All the breath whooshed out of his lungs and he begged the darkness to take him away from his thoughts.

At some point in the night he was jostled into awareness. Only partially awake, he thought he was still in his apartment and that the bed was shaking because Sam (or maybe even Castiel) were joining him. A slight smile stole his mouth. Even if he ached, he was warm and safe. They all were.

Dean rolled to the side to accommodate the intrusion but only succeeded in pulling his arm at the socket, like it was attached to something. His brow furrowed. Sometimes he did find himself tied up in bed but usually he was released once the fun was over. Besides, as the fog of sleep cleared, last he remembered he fell asleep at an archdiocese. Not exactly the sort of place he’d expect kinky shit.

His heart sank. It couldn’t be Castiel, because he’d neatly cut that that tie.

Dean blinked sleep out of his eyes, staring up at the velvet canopy as he tried to regain his bearings. There was flickering light, like candle flame. His arms were spread in opposite directions and his legs were bound at the ankles. He tugged at a wrist and finally looked to the side. Yep, his arms were definitely tied to the bed frame.

“What the hell?” he muttered.

A voice intoned, “Lord, do not remember our sins or those of our forefathers…”

Dean startled, jerking in his bonds, and whipped around to see the Cardinal and his assistant looming at his bedside. One held a shallow silver plate of water reverently before himself and the other clutched a yellowed Bible like a shield. Against what?

Dean tugged at the ropes again, a pit of dread forming in his stomach. “Where’s Castiel?”

The Cardinal kept talking. “And do not punish us for our offenses. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

Fire up his spine. Dean gasped and convulsed, partly in desperation to get free and partly in the hope that he could escape the sensation. But the ropes held fast.

Dean knew what this was. He may be an atheist, but he’d seen enough horror films to recognize an exorcism. Only problem was, he wasn’t possessed. Whatever they were doing hurt anyway. It burned, eating him up inside, he thrashed as he tried to curl forward, to escape, but he was well and truly tied down.

Not just that. He couldn’t speak, either. When he tried, different words came out, someone else’s thoughts in another language entirely. Somehow, he knew what it meant.

“ _You are blind. You cannot see. Why do you persecute me?_ ”

The Cardinal’s eyes widened. Quick with panic, he dipped his fingers in the plate of water and flicked it at Dean. He thought it might have stung, but the feeling was lost among all the other pains. “Save this man, your servant. Spirit of lust, by the power of Jesus Christ I command you, come out of his body now and for always.”

A wordless scream of frustration and fear tore out of Dean’s chest. Both his voice and not his voice. Sticky blood dripped down his forehead and began to slick the ropes around his wrists as his wounds reopened.

“Spirit of hatred, in the name of Jesus Christ I command you, come out of his body now and for always. In the name of Jesus Christ I—”

Dean spat something completely beyond his current ability to understand and the Cardinal snapped.

“Leave!” he heard him command, and then they were alone together.

The Cardinal grabbed Dean by the throat, pressing him bodily into the mattress and closing his airway, until he could only gasp for air that wouldn’t come.

“Save this man from woe!” The Cardinal shouted, squeezing. Dean gagged and fought. He couldn’t breathe. The guy was going to choke him out! “Oh lord, save this man, your servant!”

 _This guy is insane_ , Dean thought. Insane and strong. Dean’s thrashing became less frequent, he could feel the fight leaving his body, muscles giving out and thoughts clouding. The sharp smells of burned wicks and fresh blood faded. The Cardinal leaned over his face, eyes wild, lips working as he continued shouting the exorcism. Even that became difficult to see as gray closed in. He was dying.

 _He was dying_.

Sam would be okay, he remembered rationalizing his death after the head wounds. He and Bobby had each other. They’d make it.

But Castiel. He may have rejected Dean, but Dean knew that Castiel was relying on Dean to make it. For a moment Dean didn’t even care that Castiel had turned his back on him. Either way, interested in Dean or not, Castiel had to know. He’d never said it, hoped that he’d implied it, but he had to say it before the end.

He couldn’t speak, quickly losing his train of thought and feeling his body grow heavy. So he reached out. Dean wasn’t the praying type, but he wasn’t begging God for anything right now. He focused on Castiel as much as he could, imagining all the little bits about him that he grew fond of during their time together, until he couldn’t think of anything but blue paling into gray.

_Castiel, I love you. I love you, I love you…_

That made it okay when he faded away.


	10. Amen

The Continental skidded to a stop in the horseshoe driveway and he launched himself out of the car, not even turning to close the door after himself. He threw himself against the heavy wooden doors, tugging at the handles. They didn’t budge. Pounding his fists so hard his teeth chattered, he called at the top of his lungs for someone, anyone, who could get him to Dean.

A Sister tentatively opened the door and Castiel pushed past her, descending the main stairs and running full tilt toward the apartment wing. His shoes clapped across the cold stone floors. His heart pounded so loud he could hardly hear it. He should be panting or tiring, it’s not like he made time to exercise during his studies, but adrenalin carried him to Dean’s apartment in a flash.

Uriel stood outside the door, ostensibly guarding it. But he was nervous and stepped aside when Castiel gave him a hard shove.

The scene inside was something out of his nightmares. The room was dark save for a dim fireplace and flickering candles. A figure was bent over the bed, upon which lay Dean, whose wrists were tied to the frame. He was still, horribly silent, and too pale in the darkness. The figure had their hands around Dean’s throat. Castiel ripped them out of the way and recognized the Cardinal’s flushed face. The man looked livid.

“Castiel!” he shouted. “Do not interrupt your superior.”

But Castiel was crouched beside the bed, focusing completely on Dean. His chest was still, his eyes were open but glassy and unseeing. With a shaky hand Castiel felt for a pulse. There was nothing. He touched Dean’s cheek, which was cold, too cold, so cold it hurt his soul. His hand brushed over wet streaks across his face. Tear tracks. 

It had hurt. It had scared him. It had made him cry.

Numbly, Castiel reached over and carefully untied the knots keeping Dean’s body pinned to the bed. He rearranged his arms so that his hands folded over his chest and placed the discarded rosary in them. Dean said his father had gifted it to him. He knew that Dean didn’t believe, but if there was ever a time that Dean needed a touch of the divine, it was now. 

Cardinal Zachariah was still saying something but he shut up when Castiel rose from the bedside and pushed him.

“What are you doing?” the Cardinal demanded once he regained his footing. 

“You killed him,” Castiel said with deceptive calm. His chest boiled, the night was practically turning red. He pushed the Cardinal again, until his back hit the door and he fell out of the room, tripping over his own robes. The robes signifying his rank among God’s people on earth, an honor he didn’t,  _ never  _ deserved. When Castiel spoke again, it was the roar of years of repressed anguish. “ _ You killed him! _ ”

_ You hurt him, you scared him, you made him cry.  _ **_You killed him_ ** _. _

With a burst of desperate strength Castiel hauled Zachariah against the wall of the hallway so hard the Cardinal’s head cracked against the stone. Even dazed, Zachariah was able to babble out some excuses.

“You don’t know what’s going on here,” he said. “Father, put me down! Uriel!”

Castiel could see where a wide-eyed Uriel shook his head out of the corner of his eye. He may have been loyal to the Cardinal, but whatever had happened tonight had pushed him too far. That, or he just didn’t want to be implicated in what the Cardinal had done.

As long as he didn’t interrupt, it didn’t matter much to Castiel, who bared his teeth in a snarl and pressed his forearm across Zachariah’s throat, more than a little pleased when the man paled and choked. That was a taste of his own medicine.

“You lied to me,” Castiel said in a low growl. “You lied to me and you shut down the Gospel Commission and you excommunicated Gabriel and Alamedia and you lied to the whole Church for years. And you killed Dean Winchester, you bastard. There is no way to get away with what you did to him.”

“I’m protecting the Church, I’m protecting what is good and righteous—”

“Good and righteous?” Castiel barked. Zachariah struggled but Castiel held him pinned like a bear in a trap. “A tree is known by its fruit, Cardinal. ‘An evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil.’ Now since when was murder not a mortal sin?”

“Since it was necessary,” Zachariah snarled. “I have repented, I have sought absolution. God is on my side. I will not let you or that heretic destroy the Church.”

Castiel threw the Cardinal away in disgust. Zachariah had questioned Castiel’s faith and commitment for years, when really Zachariah was the one that was acting contrary to the teachings of the Church. He was never committed to the Church or the faith, only his position of power within it.

“I promise you that you are in your last days in the Church, Zachariah.”

“And how are you going to ensure that, little Father?” Zachariah sneered, rubbing his throat. “You’re some sort of faithless priest, a  _ scientist _ . I’m a distinguished Cardinal. Who are they going to believe?”

Castiel grinned, which probably looked a little manic in the dim moonlight washing the hallway. Slowly, just for the dramatic effect, Castiel reached into an inner pocket of his coat and drew out his tape recorder. The little red light blinked to let everyone know it was recording. He had every moment of their conversation on tape. 

He stopped the tape with a little  _ click  _ that echoed in the heavy silence that fell. Zachariah’s face was white, and it wasn’t because of the moonlight.

“I’ve got this thing everywhere,” he said quietly. “We scientists call this  _ evidence _ .” Then he turned back to what he really cared about.

No sooner had Castiel crossed the threshold back into Dean’s apartment than the blaze jumped out of the fireplace and the candles flared until the room filled with tall orange flame. Castiel choked on the heat and smoke, but also the sight before him. Dean sat up in the bed, rosary clutched in one hand, eyes focused on Castiel.

Except Castiel knew better now. The Cardinal had aimed to kill someone else, the heretic, not Dean, who was just the messenger. But Dean had been the one to suffer the consequences anyway. The person before him was someone else.

“Are you Father Paolo Alamedia?” he called over the fire.

The flames climbed the bedposts and surrounded Dean, who remained unmoving and silent. Castiel winced as the fire licked a radius around Dean. It may just be Dean’s body, but Castiel couldn’t stand the thought of watching him burn. He took a careful step further into the room, a desperate idea forming.

“Let me be your messenger,” he said. “Leave Dean Winchester and take me instead.”

Blood dripped down Dean’s face where the crown of thorns wounds had reopened. When he spoke, it was never more clear that he wasn’t really Dean. His voice was rough, like he hadn’t spoken in years, and there was the faintest overtone of another voice, the true voice of Brother Alamedia.

“A messenger believes. A messenger has faith,” he said. Then, in disgust, “I have seen you. You are full of conflict and doubt.”

Castiel cocked his head. Dean had faith? “What did Dean believe in?”

The answer was like a blade through his heart. “You. When he died, he prayed to you, Castiel.”

Dean believed in him. Dean didn’t believe in anything, but he believed in Castiel. He’d used the last of his strength to send him a prayer. 

Fat lot of good that did him. Castiel was too late to save him.

But Brother Alamedia was wrong on one point. Castiel had faith, and he’d never felt more resolute. He had to save Dean, or whatever was left of him, anyway. It was the least he could do.

The heavy wood doors closed behind him with an ominous  _ boom _ . Something rattled outside, it sounded like a lock, and then Zachariah’s voice.

“You and that tape can burn, Castiel!”

Castiel backed up against the doors to claim the last little space of the room that was fire-free. He pushed them for good measure, but they didn’t budge. The flames roared as they grew closer and higher. Following some instinct, he raised a hand toward the nearing fire, watching the flickering light turn his hand red... 

And stepped into it. 

He knew he wasn’t going to burn. He wasn’t the slightest bit nervous about it. Something told him that he could do anything if it meant saving Dean.

The room burned around him, wallpaper blackening and peeling, furniture melting and falling apart, statutes of saints eaten to the core. But he felt no heat and breathed only clear air. Dean, or Brother Alamedia in Dean’s body, tracked his approach with narrowed eyes. 

“Jesus said, ‘The kingdom of God is inside you and all around you, not in mansions of wood and stone. Split a piece of wood and I am there…’”

Castiel put a hand on Dean’s shoulder and finished the verse. “‘Lift a stone and you will find me.’ Brother, I will deliver your message.” He held a hand out, directing the Brother’s eyes to where he clutched the rosary to Dean’s chest. “Brother Alamedia, I call upon you to release this man.”

With Dean’s jewel-green eyes, Brother Alamedia searched Castiel’s face for the lie, but Castiel projected all the peace and certainty he felt and the Brother must have found what he needed, because he surrendered the rosary.

Castiel wrapped it around his hand and continued the exorcism. “Give him grace and let him not come into the ways of harm. Through Jesus Christ we have all been saved. Let us not fear any ill. Jesus is with us in the unity of the Holy Spirit, world without end, forever and ever.”

Dean jerked, body hunched and limp like a puppet with cut strings. Castiel moved to catch him, holding his bloody head into his shoulder.

“God bless your soul, Brother Alamedia. Go in peace.”

One piercing scream. Castiel held Dean tight through it, brow furrowed. The pain was so raw and deep, it hurt just to hear. Then Dean was still and heavy in his arms. Brother Alamedia was finally at peace.

Castiel gathered Dean against his chest, wrapped him in a sheet for protection, and faced the flames again. Brother Alamedia’s presence had preserved the bed, but now that he was gone, fire raced across the blankets and consumed the frame. Castiel hunched over Dean, curling as much of him into his body as he could. The flames wouldn’t touch Castiel, but Dean wasn’t afforded the same protection.

Heat had blasted the doors open and fire had taken care of the rest. The hallway was burning too. Castiel peered through the flames, searching for the exit. Trying to recall his panicked dash through the hallways earlier, he turned to the right. Though he knew he was safe from the heat, he still stepped carefully. He found himself holding Dean’s head to his shoulder like he could protect his airway from the smoke. Numbly, he moved his hand to Dean’s shoulder instead. There was nothing to protect. 

The anger he’d directed at the Cardinal was completely spent and now all he could feel was an emptiness so deep he felt like he could never dig his way out of it. Dean was gone.

Castiel had never had the chance to tell him.

When he emerged from the front doors, the horseshoe driveway was filled with emergency crews. Firefighters ran back and forth, preparing hoses and other devices. He even noticed the Cardinal and Uriel sat on the grass, hands behind their backs in handcuffs while police watched over them.

That did get a little bitter smirk out of him.

EMTs were trying to treat a few too-pale Sisters, one who threw off their hands and pointed insistiently towards the burning building. Her habit was askew on her head and her face was smudged with dark soot.

“They’re still in there,” she was shouting. “They didn’t come out. You have to get them!”

An EMT struggled to force the Sister to sit on the bumper of an ambulance. “Ma’am, you are in shock, the firemen are doing all they can for them, please let us look at you.”

The Sister glanced at the building over the EMTs shoulder and paled further, finally collapsing against the ambulance, mouthing, “Oh my God.”

The Sisters had noticed Castiel and gaped like he was a ghost. He must have made quite the picture, stepping out of the flames into the shadowy night, trench coat fluttering in the breeze, Dean’s head cupped cupped to his chest, untouched by the flame and smoke, smirking. Tears gathered on his face. Castiel closed his eyes against more.

He could usually disprove miracles on site. There was nothing to disprove here. He had no doubt that what had occurred tonight was a miracle, he didn’t need his instruments to see that. But it wasn’t the miracle he wanted. He would burn a thousand times if it meant Dean were still alive. That he had survived the Cardinal’s attack. That Castiel had another chance to tell him how he felt.

Another EMT was ushering him toward an ambulance but Castiel pulled away.

“Sir—!” she protested.

“I’m fine,” Castiel choked out, gripping Dean tighter. “Help the Sisters.”

He wove through the incredulous emergency crew and broke out into the gardens surrounding the archdiocese. The sky had begun to lighten, the sun was minutes from appearing. Castiel found a secluded corner where the grass was dry and the hedges separated them from the disaster. Gently, carefully, so slowly that Castiel almost changed his mind about it, he laid Dean across the grass, unwrapping the sheet so he could lie on it.

Castiel had protected him perfectly. Dean wasn’t burned anywhere, not even scorched, and he was even mostly free of soot. Purple ringed his throat where the Cardinal had taken him away. But Castiel focused on his face, slack and peaceful. Dean’s eyelashes brushed his skin, his mouth was barely open, like he was only asleep and a soft snore would drift out any second. The sun rose, painting his skin in warm tones.

Now that he was away from the fire and the scrutiny of others, Castiel allowed himself to bow his head. He still held Dean’s rosary. Raising it to his forehead, eyes squeezed closed, Castiel opened his mouth to pray, but all that came out was one long wordless scream that twisted up his insides and scraped his throat raw. All his pain, his fear, his anger, and his longing escaped. Everything he could never say out loud. He couldn’t close his mouth and stop the flood of emotion. He could only curl further over Dean’s still body and cry.

It wasn’t formal, in fact it was completely unbecoming of an ordained man, but he knew that even this was a prayer. So when it finally petered off, when he finally had to gasp for breath, he said, “Amen.”

Then he threw the rosary to the ground. He remembered being so stoically certain, when Dean had raged against the entity that would subject him to so much pain and terror for what seemed like no reason at all, that God’s ways were not readily apparent to man. He didn’t need to know why something bad was happening, just had to keep the faith as it happened.

But Dean had been possessed, crucified, killed while full of pain and fear. Before Castiel could tell him that his feelings were returned. He died surrounded by strangers, thinking that Castiel didn’t care. Castiel covered his face against it all.

“Why? Why him? It’s not fair,” he whispered. “It’s not fair.  _ It’s not fair _ …” 

A gentle touch to the back of his hand. Castiel startled so bad he fell backwards. It was just him and a dead body hidden over here.

Except.

Dean’s hand was laid out on the ground, slowly curling around the rosary. His head was turned toward Castiel and he squinted in the newly risen sun.

“Cas,” he whispered, like he wanted to say more but it was all he could do.

Castiel stared, wide eyed, hardly allowing himself to believe it. “Dean?”

“Cas…” Dean sighed, and his eyes began to slip closed again.

“No, no, no, no, no…” Castiel scrambled back to Dean, patting his cheek. “Dean? Stay here, stay with me. Please, Dean.”

“‘M not… leaving,” Dean said. “Tired.”

“Yeah, okay, rest.” Castiel brushed a hand through Dean’s hair, lips breaking into a wobbly smile when Dean sighed in contentment. “Just don’t fall asleep. Don’t—don’t go anywhere. Again.”

He kept brushing Dean’s hair, watching in amazement as Dean’s chest began to rise and fall, his throat bobbed as he swallowed around a dry mouth. Dean pulled the rosary closer to himself and Castiel knew this was a miracle too.

The movement shifted the blanket from his shoulders. He noticed, finally, that there was in fact a burn on Dean’s upper arm. Darkened, raised flesh in the shape of a hand. Castiel reached out and laid his own hand over it. A perfect match.

“Remember how I said I could never love you?” Castiel began, voice just shy of breaking. When Dean hummed to confirm, he continued. “That was a lie. A massive, mortal sin. I love you, Dean. I think I’ve always loved you.”

Dean blessed him with his shining eyes again, the corners of his lips curling enough to hint a smile. “You got my prayer.”

He reached up and Castiel lowered his head so he didn’t have to strain. A warm hand dragged his face down until their lips brushed. Up close, Dean smelled of smoke and the blood crusted to his face. When Castiel leaned back he put gentle fingers to his own lips, wishing he could keep the electric feeling the brief contact had brought.

“I think I just died,” Dean huffed. “I deserve at least that.”

Castiel couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. “He… Brother Alamedia. He said you prayed to me. What did you say?”

“I think you already know.”

As Dean pushed himself into a shaky sitting position, Castiel wrapped him tightly in his arms. Dean was warm again, warm and solid and his chest moved against Castiel’s breast. It was real. It was right.

“I love you,” he said. “I’m never letting you go.”

A hand stroked through his hair, cupping the back of his head. “Me neither, Cas.”

 

* * *

 

“ _ Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love and neither can the floods drown it… _ ” Song of Songs 8:6-7, KJV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Song of Songs is about a passionate love between the Beloved, an insider of high social and moral standing, and the Shulamite, an outsider marked by what is socially perceived to be sin. Their devotion to each other makes them outcasts, yet the Song, central to Christian Biblical canon, celebrates their unconditional love and erotic autonomy as fundamental to not only humanity, but salvation itself. ;)


	11. There will always be you and me

“You’re sure you want to do this?” Sam said from the passenger seat. Dean was stretched out over the back seat of Father Samandriel’s Continental, which was practically Castiel’s Continental by now. He twirled the key between his fingers, watching the sunlight gleam off the dull coating.

“Yeah,” he said. “Dying put a few things in perspective.”

Sam pursed his lips but didn’t argue. He thought that Dean was being rash and also that he should be in bed at all hours of the day. His brother understandably had not been happy to hear that Dean had been briefly dead and had done nothing but mother hen him for the past week, despite the clear evidence that Dean was totally fine, really.

He wore exclusively long sleeved shirts now, to hide the ragged scars on his wrists, and he was planning on growing his hair out a bit. It was difficult to hide the crown of thorns scars on his forehead, he’d already noticed stares in public. The last thing he wanted was any attention from this. Being crucified had been bad enough. It was a small mercy that the wounds had mysteriously healed into old scars immediately.

Castiel was driving. He’d called Dean’s revival a miracle. Dean was skeptical, but then again, Castiel was the resident miracle specialist, and while Dean couldn’t definitively say what being dead was like, he really had felt dead, for whatever it was worth. 

He wouldn’t talk about it much, but Dean knew Castiel’s world was in chaos. The Vatican was rooting out all of Zachariah’s colleagues and discovering just how deep the corruption went. Manipulating the Church for years wasn’t taken lightly. 

While the Vatican investigated Zachariah, Castiel was on some sort of leave. He didn’t have to be at the Vatican for anything past some witness statements and was otherwise excused from his duties as an investigator. He’d decided to spend his time with Dean, who had to admit, waking up to Castiel’s serene face every morning was probably the best thing that ever happened to him, even if their sharing a bed was completely chaste and not the result of anything sexy. 

Scenery blurred by outside the car. Little stretches of green trees interspersed with yellow grassy fields. It was probably beautiful compared to his usual view of gray buildings and sky, but Dean was otherwise engaged. For awhile he’d distracted himself with watching the back of Castiel’s head. How he tilted it when he came across something he couldn’t quite figure out, how his hair was perpetually a bird’s nest, like he didn’t even try to comb it.

But eventually he ran out of metaphors for Castiel’s hair so he had to face up to the fact that he’d decided to visit the location John sent him with the key.

Castiel had immediately volunteered to drive and Sam had just assumed his spot beside Dean without any discussion about it. It made Dean’s heart warm, but he wasn’t going to admit anything girly like that to Sam.

“We’re close,” Castiel said. 

Dean perked up and righted himself so he had a better view outside the window. In the near distance was a low plain building, which coalesced into a number of cinder block storage units as they got within shouting distance.

There wasn’t much out here, just trees and grass, so they were fairly isolated. They hunted down the aisles for unit 25, the number on the other side of the tag on the key. It didn’t take long to find.

He yanked the door over his head and peered into the dark unit. A shape, familiar long ago, gleamed in the low light from outside.

“No way…” Dean breathed. 

Sam hit the light switch, illuminating John’s 1967 Chevy Impala parked among stacks of crates and cardboard boxes. It was covered in dust and the shine had dulled after what was probably years in storage, but she was otherwise in perfect condition.

“Oh wow,” Sam said with a lot less enthusiasm than Dean. Cars had always been Deans thing, and this particular car had maybe more bad than good memories attached to it. “That’s what John used to drive us around in, right?”

Dean paced around the car, swiping through the dust to see the state of the coat and peering in the windows. “It’s Baby, alright. Sam, we have to take her for a spin.”

“Right now?” Sam said. “Do you see the keys anywhere?”

Dean spun around, looking for a ring of keys on a hook or on top of a box. Castiel stayed in the threshold and shrugged when Dean asked him if he saw anything. John wouldn’t send them to the Impala without the keys, right?

What did John want out of this, anyway?

“Woah,” Sam said, startled. The lid was off a cardboard box and inside Dean could glimpse what looked like some sort of bird skull, if the beak was anything to go by.

“Weird shit?” Dean grunted, more than used to John sending that sort of stuff through the mail. Sam had so far been spared that experience.

“Yeah, but also,” Sam tentatively rummaged through the contents of the box, careful not to touch too much, and emerged with a keyring, which he tossed to Dean. “That it?”

Dean slotted a key in the door and it turned perfectly. Grinning, he turned back to Sam and Castiel, who looked a bit like they were waiting for him to combust. “It works!” When they just continued to look wary, he gestured to the car. “Well? Get in? Places to see, people to visit.”

“You remember how to drive?” Sam was careful to ask.

Dean snorted. “It’s just like riding a bike, Sammy. Plus, I’d never do anything to hurt Baby.”

“What about the people inside?” Castiel deadpanned.

“Hey, c’mon, guys. You’re my most important people, I’d never get you hurt. I work at an auto shop, I know how to drive a car.”

Dean got in the driver’s seat while Sam and Castiel eyed each other. Sam came to some silent decision and opened the passenger door for Castiel.

“You two try her out, I’ll drive Cas’s car back.”

Dean’s smile fell a little. “Sam…” 

“I refuse to be a third wheel. You and Cas need to talk some stuff out.”

“We do?” Cas wondered.

“Besides, I know you like the Impala but… she reminds me of a time I wasn’t happy. You can drive me later, right?”

“Right,” Dean conceded. “Okay, you go on ahead.”

Sam enfolded Dean in a quick hug. Dean drew it out by hugging back. When they parted, Dean was only a little sad to see him go. The prospect of time alone with Castiel in the Impala made him a little giddy.

When he got into the Impala, he took the rosary out of his pocket and wrapped it around the rearview mirror. The crucifix gleamed in his peripheral. 

She rode smooth as if she’d been taken care of every single day. Dean had one hand on the wheel, one elbow out the window. Wind whipped his hair around his head, tickling the scars, and he laughed as Castiel tried in vain to keep his own hair from ending up an even worse birds nest.

They came to the tip of a low hill overlooking the trees around them. Dean pulled to a stop and killed the engine, soaking up the view.

“You did it,” he said to Castiel. “You figured out what was going on and you stopped it.”

Castiel shifted. “I wouldn’t exactly say it was me.”

“You’re gonna give the credit to the big man upstairs?”

“It was both of us,” Castiel surprised him by saying. “And God too, but He’s involved in all good things.”

Dean put his hands behind his head, grinning. He felt light and free, like he could do anything.

“Driving the Impala… Solving supernatural mysteries… I think this is what I’m meant to do, Cas.”

“Traveling around America exorcising ghosts?”

“Yeah…” Dean twisted his hands on the wheel. “I mean, I like working at Bobby’s, but it’s not where I belong. He’s practically my dad, I don’t want to be under his wing forever. And I’m good at cars, but it’s not… I don’t feel like it’s a life goal. Not like what you have.”

“You want a purpose. A mission.”

“To make a difference.”

“Right.”

“And I could do that. I could save people… Hunt—things? If there are ghosts who knows what else is out there.”

“Demons,” Castiel offered. He looked uncomfortable when Dean quirked an eyebrow. “According to the Church there are demons on earth. Although as a layperson, you would be ill equipped to deal with them by yourself.”

Dean smirked, heart fluttering. “Is that you offering to join me, Cas?”

“Yes,” Castiel said in that solemn way of his, hands clasped in his lap. He watched Dean with unsettling intensity. “I’ve decided to take a sabbatical after Zachariah’s investigation concludes. I need to reflect on my place in the Church,” he averted his eyes, “and a number of personal inquiries.”

_ You’re the personal inquiry _ , Dean’s heart said.

_ Shut up _ , his brain shot back.

He settled a light hand on Castiel’s shoulder and tried for a reassuring smile. “Whatever you need to do, man.”

“Whatever I need to do,” Castiel said, looking at the hand. “Okay.”

Castiel closed the space between them, hesitated a moment, waiting for Dean’s acknowledgement, and when Dean gave it, heart going a million miles a minute, he finally got a taste of Castiel’s mouth.

That was about the extent of the kiss. Castiel was a billion year old virgin, basically, so the mechanics of kissing were obviously beyond him. But the sheer passion and desperation he put into it more than made up for any nose-bumping or teeth-clacking awkwardness.

Man, it was a good thing Sam told them to go alone.

Dean realized Castiel was murmuring something in breathless gasps in the moments they parted. He caught a few words, which became much easier to discern when he moved to straddle Castiel and taste the line of his jaw.

“Oh God!” erupted out of Castiel when Dean latched onto his throat. Dean smirked, then sat back with a quizzical smile when Castiel continued with “Whose O-Only Begotten Son—”

“Are you praying?”

Castiel was flushed and panting, his lips swollen and wet. Dean thought if his pupils blew any wider, his eyes might explode. His eyelids were a little red. “Yes, I—” He choked.

Realizing the signs, Dean leaned in again, holding Castiel’s face, stroking like Castiel had done for him all those nights ago, like he could wipe off the sadness with each pass of his fingers. “Cas? Is this too much? I know you haven’t really done anything like this recently, or, God, at all. Have you done this before? If I’m going too fast—”

“No, Dean. I-I’m alright. I just.” Castiel curled his hands in Dean’s jacket, locking them together. “You pray to say thank you. You pray to praise God for his goodness. You pray when you can only call something a miracle. I’ve prayed to God my entire life that I would find happiness, and I looked for that so many places, but nothing has ever been to me what you are now. And I want to thank Him for you. You’re the greatest thing He’s ever made and I’m so blessed to have found you.

“Dean,” he said, and kissed him with the urgency of a dying man. Or someone born again. “Dean. Dean. Dean,” with the reverence of every prayer Dean had heard him say.

Everything fell away. The Impala, the view, the world. Castiel seemed to have learned a few things since the first kiss and now dominated the exchange with tongue and lips and a complete lack of humility. He gripped the back of Dean’s neck, diving deeper. There wasn’t a speck of the stony celibate priest present when he moaned low in his throat and sucked up Dean’s responding noises.

They pulled away, breathing hard, smiling harder. Castiel crossed himself.

Dean chuckled, bumping their foreheads together. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to give me a priest kink.”

“How do you know that’s not my plan?”

Dean really laughed now. Joy bubbled out of his throat, impossible to stop. He laughed because clueless Castiel made a pretty great joke, he laughed because he was Castiel’s and Castiel was his, and he laughed because he didn’t know how else to thank whoever was listening that they had this moment.

They were so happy.

 

* * *

 

The bedside phone rang exactly ten times. The shrill chime echoed around the empty apartment, pushing through the vacant spaces of the kitchen, living room, and bathroom. The sink dripped slowly, quietly. Dust hovered over the bed, swirling over the two impressions in the mattress before settling.

“ _ This is Dean Winchester. I’m not home right now, leave a message. _ ”

Beep.

“Dean,” John Winchester said. “Sorry it took me awhile to call you again. I hope things have been well. That necklace—it’s not a necklace, it’s a rosary. You better be careful with it. Use the key I sent, leave it in the box in the storage unit that says ‘GHOST.’ When you call back I’ll explain everything. Tell me then whether or not you believe.”

 

* * *

 

“ _ If the sun refused to shine _ __  
_ I would still be loving you _ __  
_ Mountains crumble to the sea _ _  
_ __ There will still be you and me ” Thank You, Led Zeppelin

**Author's Note:**

> Leave me a comment or kudos! I've seen this fic so much I have no idea what it's like anymore, so every comment is a new perspective. Thank you so much for reading this beast!
> 
> Credits song where all the characters dance like it's a Dreamworks film: [Uma Thurman by Fall Out Boy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBswx7GEARc) (" _I can move mountains, I can work a miracle..._ ")
> 
> If you are interested in the upcoming sequel, [please subscribe to the series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1242176).


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